GROUND BRANCH

This is my first Steam review, which I have never done because I've never thought about it, but this game is SO utterly awful, I HAVE to leave a review. (scroll to the bottom for quick answer) I love tactical games, and "SOF" themed stuff. I started playing this game around 2024 (which I think was early v1034, but idr), and thought it was pretty fun and cool. It was different, and kinda nice because there's not that many games that focus on tactics and real stuff, that isn't just another CoD or Battlefield. The game felt very bland, the missions were kinda boring (still are), the performance was AWFUL (still is), and the gameplay felt pretty clunky and VERY stiff compared to others (still does). The game was alright none the less, and the mods and modding community legit carried the game for me (still kinda do). That was until late v1034/ early v1035, where things started to get worse and worse, VERY quickly. Updates rarely happened, maybe once every 3-4 months (if that), and were EXTREMELY dry. To the point where a "great new update" was simply a couple of bug fixes, a menu glitch fix, and MAYBE a new gun. Then v1035 came out, which looked pretty good before hand, but was horrible when it actually did release. The game felt worse, (which I can't even really explain how, it just did), and there wasn't that much new content, nor could you feel the "improvements" they said they made. Those update patterns and blandness remained until they announced v1.0. I got so excited, (because I want this game to be good), and it looked awesome. It was so hyped up, and it looked like this update might genuinely make the game playable and fun again. But it didn't, not even close. The game isn't necessarily worse, but not better either. The new content is kinda cool, the ready room is pretty sick, the re-done missions look somewhat better, and the new animations are pretty decent. BUT, and big but. The game is still, HORRIFIC imo. The game runs at 90-100-ish FPS on the training map, and 50-60 FPS on 90% of the missions, WITHOUT ReShade, on MEDIUM GAH DAM SETTINGS. I can run the Port mission (with the rain and containers) on Ready or Not, with a medium/ heavy ReShade preset, with High/ Ultra graphics at 90-110 FPS. The devs said the new update brought a bunch of optimizations, but I PROMISE YOU it didn't. I've tried every rendering option, every graphics option, game still runs like shi. The game also still feels CRAZY clunky and stiff, and IS NOT rewarding to play with. It LITERALLY feels worse than MODDED RAVENFIELD (the low effort battlefield copy), and for sure feels the worst out of any similar genre game I've played (or ANY shooter game for that matter). The devs don't really add anything players want (if they do it's minute, modders are better), and rarely EVER fix bugs that players complain about. All in all, when I purchased this game, I thought it was fairly new. I didn't know it had been in development for 6 YEARS when I got it (now in development for 8, maybe even longer idk). The game says it's now in 1.0, but it IS NOT. This game IS STILL IN DEVELOPMENT, even if the devs tell you it isn't (there's isn't even a full campaign yet, just prologue). This game gets worse every update, the devs take their sweet time, and there are MUCH better options now (Operator, Ready or Not, Arma 3, etc) For crying out loud, a SINGLE dude built a game that is MILLIONS times better than this (and $10 cheaper), ALL by himself, IN ONE YEAR! (Operator). Case in point, DO NOT WASTE $30 ON THIS GAME (I can't even speak all my gripes in this review or it would be 5x longer). I would ONLY recommend this if you have a bunch of friends, absolutely need a break from your main "tactical game" rotation, or just have F**K money laying around.

Great game, but you need to make the AI shoot for center mass instead of headshots 100%. I take no hits in a match and live. Anytime I'm shot it is a 100% death chance. Reprogram your ♥♥♥♥, go to a gun range, and actually fire some real firearms, because it's very clear you nerds don't own firearms. The AI reaction time far exceeds human abilities. Edit: THIS is your 1.0 launch? Sure, there are improvements (ESPECIALLY to the AI, thank you for that), but my gods this is a janky release. Bugs for days and untested changes to mechanics and gunplay. This game is not ready for 1.0. It's late Beta at best. Loving the new additions of guns and a few attachments; stellar work. Still a ton of fun, but I gotta maintain criticism where it's due.

This one's painful. ** TLDR: Ground Branch has had many, MANY years to get it's AI right, and the 1.0 release simply does not bode well for the ideal future that many of it's most dedicated fans have dreamed of. The enemy AI is lacking enough in it's simple, un-immersive behavior for me to not recommend it, even with extensive AI difficulty tweaking options. ** Ground Branch has been one of the coolest projects that I've had the pleasure of following for a very long time in the milsim shooter space. I remember seeing extremely early footage over a decade ago when it was very proof of concept, and the very notion of seeing a physical bullet leave the barrel of the rifle was so novel for me that I had been loosely following the game ever since. When I finally picked it up a number of years ago, it felt so damn good being able to play a simple milsim sandbox with high amounts of customization, whether it was for your character, loadout, mission, or even AI difficulty. The game has always had very slow but steady development, similar to Project Zomboid's story, and I've always been fine with that. It's always been a game that I would half recommend to friends, one of those "if you're okay with the knowledge that you're paying for a milsim with good roots that will feel like it's forever in progress, then yea buy it." I'm willing and able to put up with all sorts of jank and lack of polish if I feel that a game has good bearings. I bought DayZ standalone on day one of its Early Access, and I've loved it from day one all the same. Ground Branch has always had this refreshing aspect to it where it's always felt like a privilege to play as a milsim fan. It always felt like a game that knew what it wanted to be, and just needed more time in the oven compared to other games for it to one day fulfill all of that beautiful potential that it seemed dialed in on. Plenty of amazing maps, weapon customization with no meta loadouts, scenario customization to your heart's content, it's had so much going for it for so long. The one *glaring* issue that GB has had for years and years, is that it's AI has always been just short of feeling fun to fight. My disappointment with the AI engagements is not regarding janky animations, or imperfect reaction times in either direction, or voice acting, or time to kill; the AI for YEARS has felt as if you are fighting paper targets. Sure, depending on your AI settings and luck, sometimes those paper targets instakill you and it feels like ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Sometimes the AI instakill you because you made a mistake, and whereas other games would forgive you and handicap the AI with slow reaction times, GB decides to smite you for your sin. That is not the problem. The problem at this point in time, is that the AI has never CONSISTENTLY felt fun to engage. They have never CONSISTENTLY felt as if they communicate with each other. They have never CONSISTENTLY reacted believably to being shot at, or to adapting to a match where there's been gunfire and death for 3 minutes straight, or to using any kind of tactics other than "pick random cover regardless of context"... The moments of the AI being janky and clustering in a doorway, or idly walking over their comrade's body and not caring, or having 3 enemies panic and run for cover while 3 other enemies in the same exact area walk like nothing is happening... It still feels like I'm fighting paper targets more than half the time, and I cannot recommend the game because of it despite EVERYTHING else that the game does offer. I'm really not trying to sound overdramatic, I don't regret my purchase those years ago, but there's a reason that I pick the game back up every major update just to put it down shortly after, consistently, year after year. It's simply because the AI does not feel worth fighting. Playing with friends or a group helps with the replayability, and the PvP scene has always been this aspect that's stuck in "potential purgatory" where it's never fully been realized. But the AI is just not fun or engaging to play against, and I feel incredibly demoralized that I finally feel like I have to give it a thumbs down with it's """1.0""" release. I hope one day they actually get overhauled and the devs prove me wrong, because they clearly know how to do so many things right. But I'd be lying if I said that I'm not incredibly disappointed to see the engagements in this state after so many years. There's plenty of things that this game offers and does well, you'd probably still get your money's worth if you had a group to mess around with for a while, but the most important aspect for me in games like this are intense, believable engagements, and I do not feel like Ground Branch, with it's 1.0 release, provides that.

So disappoint to this version. trash gunplay, gun recoil is so high even worse than Beta. Bots are so hard, they can one shot ur full armor but I need at least five shots to kill them. There are so many bugs, too. The storage is reaching 100 GB, it used to be 30-40GB

这1.0正式版的神人更新神人大小神人宣发竟然还有孝子护？你玩家社区不铁板一块就算了还要圈地自萌威胁开盒其他发表不同言论的玩家？BYD你图腾战术看多了吧

Tasted operator and this can't compare.

OPERATOR's early access feels more complete than Ground Branch's 1.0, hold off especially if like to play solo as they have yet to add allied bots for a true single player experience. Wouldn't count on that being any time soon as the enemy AI they currently have is nowhere near polished.

This would be a hard No from me. I'm currently getting hit with CTDs playing the Operations mode(the shiny new 1.0 feature) on a fresh install with zero mods. Performance also seems to be very unstable, I'm getting random frame drops from muzzle flashes/frags effects and lighting. There was supposed to be an overhaul to the AI, but quite frankly I can't tell the difference between this overhaul and the last AI overhaul they did. Bots still mostly stand in one position until they are alerted to the player's presence, then depending on the difficulty level proceed to snap onto the player in .4-3 seconds after they spot you and mag dump. In the first Operations Mode mission I've been killed multiple times by bots phasing through doors or blind firing through a wall, on my last run before I crashed I saw a bot frag two of his buddies and then he blasted me through the smoke cloud. Another thing to note about that new Operations mode unless I missed something there's currently no matchmaker and you don't seem to have the ability to host a public Operations lobby viewable in the server browser. So If you don't already have an active buddy on your friends list with the game you're SOL and will have to play the mode solo. I take no pleasure in saying this, but considering how long this game was in Early Access and what little has been added to the 1.0 release, I would strongly advise keeping away. Maybe sometime down the road(map) it will be worth picking up, or if there is a very steep discount like down to $10-$15. Edit: I forgot to mention the ungodly storage footprint, the game somehow increase from around 40gb to 100gb... I understand they did a whole map revamp and modeled a fancy new equipment room, but where did the extra 60gb come from?

The devs work incredibly slowly, and on top of that they have the wrong priorities about what to develop. The game was in Early Access for something like 8 years and supposedly just had its 1.0 release, but still looks and feels like it's about 2 years into Early Access. From the beginning, the devs have been promising a single-player campaign with tactical missions and AI squadmates, and yet only last year did they finally add [i]one[/i] long, difficult, janky demo mission and AI squadmates that were almost entirely non-functional. With the 1.0 release, they replaced (not added, replaced) the demo mission with 2 others and completely removed the AI squadmates because of how broken they were. Who knows when (or if) they'll ever be back in a usable state. With the way I saw updates being handled during the Early Access years after I bought the game, I'm not optimistic about how development will proceed past 1.0. Updates were few and far between, and tended to be focused on superficial features, such as making minor improvements to maps which still didn't have actual missions in them, adding [i]yet another[/i] AR or AK variant to the arsenal, and needlessly overhauling the character customization UI. There was allegedly an update to enemy AI, but I never noticed because standing around trying to observe enemies' behavior is a good way to get abruptly 360-no-scoped by them. I'll give the devs this much: I like most of the maps themselves, and the gunplay feels detailed and robust. There just isn't much actual substance to the game outside of playing "soldier dress-up."

V1.0 didn't even support more than a single language (i18n).