Ground Branch

calendar Jun 4, 2022 · 3 min read · FPS Tactical Realistic Military Simulation  ·
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I like first person shooters, especially tactical ones. I played a bit with Tarkov but what I hate of that game is the crafting part. I hate crafting in general, It's annoying to me spending time looking around to find objects combine them to obtain something useful, it distracts me from the real scope of the game.

The good part of Tarkov is the combat system, it is very realistic and satisfactory so I looked around to find something very essential and focused on the combat part only and I found it: Ground Branch.

The game is still in Early Access stage at the time I write this article but it is completely playable in PVE and PVP.

You can choose between different missions and different ways to play them.

The main ways to play the game are:

  • Training: This is mandatory before start to play and teaches you about the basic game concepts

  • Lone Wolf: You play alone, you can choose the map and the way to play it:

    • Intel Retrieval: You have to rescue some intelligence devices, surviving until you reach the extraction point
    • Terrorist Hunt: You have to locate and kill all the enemies in the map

  • Host game: You can host a game and invite your friends to play with you. Hosting a game you can choose between:

    • Deathmatch: [PVP] Fight for the most kills in a free-for-all battle with unlimited respawns
    • Dynamic Task and Rescue: [PVP] Two teams spawn in completely random spots on the map, Once Defenders have placed the flag, Attackers must locate and capture the flag area.
    • Intel retrieval: [Solo/Co-Op] Search for the intel device in one of the several suspected locations, then safely retrieve it to the marked extraction point.
    • Team Elimination: [PVP] Eliminate the opposing team. Individual and collective respawns can be enabled
    • Terrorist Hunt: [Solo/Co-Op] Locate and eliminate a predetermined number of enemies in the area of operations.
    • Training: [Solo/Co-Op] Practice your shooting and [CQB](Close-quarters combat - Wikipedia) skills individually or collectively in The Farm's multiple ranges and shoothouses
    • Uplink: [PVP] Defenders guard and intel device in one of the several possible locations, as Attackers must locate and hack it to win

  • Server browser: You choose between existing servers accordingly to the game mode you want to play:

Mission settings

For each mission you can choose some interesting settings:

  • Insertion time: Allows you to choose the time of the day you want to start the mission. This changes completely the environment lightning.
  • Enemy experience: Levels are Untrained, Trained, Experienced, Veteran or Custom

Custom mode allows you to customize the behavior of the AI of the enemies:

AI has still some problems to me. Sometime enemies remain stuck even at Veteran level and they are easy to shoot, sometimes they are very reactive and kill you even at very long distance in no time but it's an early stage game so some glitches are part of the game.

Weapons customization

Weapons can be customized very in depth, in general you can customize everything about your loadout.

The weapons customization is great, you can choose between a great variety of rails, sights, magazines, rail mount components and combine them whatever you want.

The details of the weapons and maps is very high, and the difficulty heavily depends on the map environment. Playing forest maps or the Rig map is very difficult, there are a lot of details and vegetation make quite impossible to spot enemies, dying in those maps is very easy despite of the difficulty level you choose.

Conclusions

If you like FPS tactical games Ground Branch will give you a lot of satisfaction. It is still a pre-alpha version but BlackFoot Studios releases updates very frequently and game is improving release after release.