Hello Squaddies!

Welcome to Squad in 2026! Today we bring you Patch 10.2, containing multiple updates for Fireteam and a slew of bug fixes and optimizations for Squad overall.

The Community Development team have been hard at work as well with a couple of gameplay changes including changes to Heli timers and more. Read on to find out more!

Mesh Streaming:Memory use has been improved with an implementation of mesh streaming LODs for most static and skeletal meshes. This results in clients only keeping the minimum required quality level of meshes in memory and streaming in higher quality meshes as needed.

• All vehicles now have LOD’s streamed on demand.

• All soldiers now have LOD’s streamed on demand.

• All weapons now have LOD’s streamed on demand

10.2 brings new bug fixes, QoL updates and content for Fireteam!

• The end-of-match screen will tell the non-host players that the host is picking the next mission, to discourage immediately clicking the Back To Main Menu button.

• In missions that require all players to be revived before mission victory, a reminder popup will appear when victory is blocked by a downed player.

• All missions have been renamed with distinct names, replacing the previous objective-type designations. (In the future, we aspire to make all the missions feel unique and have more varied main and side objectives - distinct names reinforce this more than names based on the main objective)

Please see this previous post for the full name list - https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/393380/view/507348444540568605?l=english

• Fixed the "FTL marker always visible" and "SL marker always visible" settings.

• Fixed issue where ESC key does not close the Select Fireteam Pack screen.

• Fixed issue where half of the squad did not have shadows - they are no longer vampires🧛

• The “Founder” tag in Fireteam server browser now reads as “Supporter”.

• Fixed issue with free missions being unavailable when Epic Online Services has an outage.

• Hid the “Close” button in the “New Round Screen” as it was redundant.

• Fixed issue with the Fire Support Weapon Skin leading to nowhere in the store.

• Fixed issue where hosting a new fireteam lobby from within a fireteam lobby led to a black screen - what a weird one…

• Fixed players in Fireteam missions being able to switch to any kit using vehicles and ammo crates with insufficient ammo available for the requested kit.

• Fireteam Free Tier Mission \[+1 Mission]

  • Raiders on the Storm (Al Basrah) (5 players) - Insurgents are stockpiling arms on a heavily defended island. With all the bridges blocked, your squad must conduct an insertion via boat and assault the target.

• Fireteam Paid Tier Mission \[+1 Mission] 

• Final Departure (Harju) (5 players) - Left behind as friendly lines are crumbling, traverse your way through a deadly forest battlefield to reach the coast and catch the last ride off the mainland.

We will also be launching a few new missions with the tag \[EXP]. These are missions we deem as “Experimental”, pushing the player experience in new and exciting directions, more so than other missions. We feel they are playable for a community release to gather additional feedback but not to release as “official missions”, and to see if we want to continue to develop and iterate on them going forward. These Experimental missions will be available to everyone for a limited time, and may or may not return in free or paid tiers in future. So jump in, Squad up, and give them a test!

• \[EXP] Council Decapitation (Gorodok) (5 players) - Intel suggests that a high level gathering of a local militia commander and Russian forces is taking place within striking distance. Your objective is to crash the meeting, but available assets are limited to recently captured militia vehicles.
  Marked as experimental because it is against two enemy factions at once, with two objective phases and extraction required. Releasing early to gather feedback on longer missions such as this.

• \[EXP] High Noon (Fallujah) (5 players) - Trapped behind enemy lines after a recon mission gone wrong, your squad is about to come under assault from all sides. Build fortifications, ration your supplies, and hold the perimeter until friendlies can break through to your position.
  Marked as experimental because the bots do not know how to destroy player deployables yet. Releasing early to gather feedback on the mission concept while we work on improved bot behaviour.

• \[EXP] Superfob (Al Basrah) (5 players) - Command wants an outpost set up in a strategic area. Load up a convoy with supplies and pick the most defensible position, then build fast and hold your ground against the inevitable counterattack.
  Marked as experimental because the bots do not convincingly attack over open ground yet. Releasing early to gather feedback on the mission concept while we work on improved bot behaviour.

- Helicopter timing changes from 10 mins to 5 Mins

- Fall height threshold increased for causing damage 

- Updated Transport ticket costs from 5 to 3

- Set all vehicle hulls to use Continuous Collision Detection (CCD)

- M1151 flip tuning adjustments increased flip threshold

- M1151 Light flip tuning adjustments increased flip threshold

- BRDM-2 flip tuning thresholds increased

• Added "Waiting For Host" text to the co-op victory/defeat screen so all players know that the host can select the next mission

• Renamed all free and paid tier Fireteam missions with new stylistic names to reflect our ambition to make each mission unique and stand out

• Added and changed several lines in the default Excluded Layers server config file so that the new and renamed Fireteam missions will not show up in layer rotation

• Fix the clipping issue on hands when holding certain grenades

• Fixed effect volume slider not affecting vehicle burning sound.

• Fixed the intensity of suppression and other depth-of-field blur effects scaling depending on the player's Resolution, Screen Percentage, Aspect Ratio, Upscaling, and Field Of View settings.

• Fixed SPG9 AT Emplacement having no backblast damage.

• Vehicles with closed turret tops should now display a turret icon whenever using a repair box

• Fixed FV107 and FV432 woodland wrecks still using desert assets

• Fixed the soft lock in deployment screen after switching teams

• Fixed helicopters gaining additional velocity when pilot experiences sudden game performance drops.

• The music player will now track its paused state so as to not force play the song when adjusting volume if you had it paused

• Fixed the gap that was appearing in the commander ability list

• Armory weapon icons sometimes were shrinked sometimes

• Fixed a visual issue with AFU Stugna-P ATGM Emplacement where you could see your own soldier without a head when looking at yourself using the Control Unit.

• Fixed store screen forcing weapon skins into 2 columns causing the scrollbar to be offset by large amount

• Proper emote will be played in emote screen in armory after you open it for the first time

• Fixed AFU Rallypoint being stacked too high.

• Armory - changed M110 weapon and skin preview to the suppressed version

• Fixed Meupold MK4 scopes geometry disappearing in ADS view

• Wrist weight issues are on all roles.  Updated weights on all AFU soldiers.  Submitted on CL 529274.

• Fixed overlapping of Equipped Emote toast with Navigation Bar

• Fixed incorrect AFU commander VO

• Scope Update Rate Setting fixed

• Landed helicopters no longer slide around if the pilot jumps out while the engine is still running.

• Fixed AFU Battlegroups on Skirmish and Seed map layers having access to 2 HABs.

• Fixed the tail rotors of many helicopters being too easy to break in a tail-strike landing.

• Increased WPMC Radio FOB chatter to match other FOB's volume

• Player is no longer killed whenever Stugna is destroyed through an explosive

• Armory option 'Only show weapons with skins available' presented few weapons with no premium skins

• Fixed some issues with name tag visibility.

• Turret rotation sounds are now interpolated.

• Fixed AK-74 Rifles animation not moving when switching the fire mode while aiming down the sights.

• Mutaha Olive trees with corrected bullet collision behaviour.

• Fixing the floating weapon when entering M1151 M2 series

• Fix the deploy animations for the open turret

• Fixed AFU MT-LB Logistics Vehicle costing only 1 ticket instead of 5.

• Fixed M60T, M1128, M113 TLAV, TAPV weapons not following vehicle weapon slot type standards.

• Fixed being able to always swap your kit in Fireteam missions, even if the vehicle or FOB had insufficient ammo for the swap

• Fixed glass on Ural trucks partially blocking player's vision

• Fixed blue tint on technical glass

Al Basrah

• Fixed a broken material at the Terminal building

Black Coast

• Fixed a couple of trees that were blocking a dirt road at grid I11-5-6

Chora

• Fixed murder hole blocking projectiles on two compounds present on the map

Harju

• Added ambient music

Sanxian Islands

• Adjusted brightness of some foliage materials so they're not extremely bright

• Fixed bots not being able to walk along seawall

10.3 is just around the corner with even more content and changes so stay tuned!

A quick message from the Fireteam…team… before we all go on winter break.

We wanted to give a massive thank you to all Squaddies for your support, and valuable feedback on Squad's newest gamemode, Fireteam, since its launch.

It’s fantastic to see everyone playing, providing feedback and having fun. A few modded fireteam missions have also emerged already! In future Fireteam update posts, we definitely want to highlight what mods we have tried so you can try them out too! Check them out in the steam workshop by searching with the co-op missions tag. Link found here: Steam Workshop Link 

We didn’t want to leave everyone hanging over the holidays not knowing what is coming up for Fireteam, so here is what to expect from Fireteam in the January update. We have a bit of everything. Content, QoL updates, bug fixing and more!

Quality of Life Features:

• The end-of-match screen will tell the non-host players that the host is picking the next mission, to discourage immediately clicking the Back To Main Menu button.

• In missions that require all players to be revived before mission victory, a reminder popup will appear when victory is blocked by a downed player.

• All missions have been renamed with distinct names, replacing the previous objective-type designations. (In the future, we aspire to make all the missions feel unique and have more varied main and side objectives - distinct names reinforce this more than names based on the main objective)

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed the "FTL marker always visible" and "SL marker always visible" settings.

• Fixed issue where ESC key does not close the Select Fireteam Pack screen.

• Fixed issue where half of the squad did not have shadows - they are no longer vampires🧛

• The “Founder” tag in Fireteam server browser now reads as “Supporter”.

• Fixed issue with free missions being unavailable when Epic Online Services has an outage.

• Hid the “Close” button in the “New Round Screen” as it was redundant.

• Fixed issue with the Fire Support Weapon Skin leading to nowhere in the store.

• Fixed issue where hosting a new fireteam lobby from within a fireteam lobby led to a black screen - what a weird one…

• Fixed players in Fireteam missions being able to switch to any kit using vehicles and ammo crates with insufficient ammo available for the requested kit.

Upcoming Missions:

We will be adding two new missions to Fireteam. One into the Free Tier and one into the supporter pack. All Squad players will be able to play the Free Tier mission, and everyone who owns the Supporter Pack or the Founder Pack will be able to play the Paid Tier Mission (at no extra cost).

• Fireteam Free Tier Mission \[+1 Mission]

• Raiders on the Storm (Al Basrah) (5 players) - Insurgents are stockpiling arms on a heavily defended island. With all the bridges blocked, your squad must conduct an insertion via boat and assault the target.

• Fireteam Paid Tier Mission \[+1 Mission] 

• Final Departure (Harju) (5 players) - Left behind as friendly lines are crumbling, traverse your way through a deadly forest battlefield to reach the coast and catch the last ride off the mainland.

Something New - Experimental Missions:

We will also be launching a few new missions with the tag \[EXP]. These are missions we deem as “Experimental”, pushing the player experience in new and exciting directions, more so than other missions. We feel they are playable for a community release to gather additional feedback but not to release as “official missions”, and to see if we want to continue to develop and iterate on them going forward. These Experimental missions will be available to everyone for a limited time, and may or may not return in free or paid tiers in future. So jump in, Squad up, and give them a test!

• \[EXP] Council Decapitation (Gorodok) (5 players) - Intel suggests that a high level gathering of a local militia commander and Russian forces is taking place within striking distance. Your objective is to crash the meeting, but available assets are limited to recently captured militia vehicles.
  Marked as experimental because it is against two enemy factions at once, with two objective phases and extraction required. Releasing early to gather feedback on longer missions such as this.

• \[EXP] High Noon (Fallujah) (5 players) - Trapped behind enemy lines after a recon mission gone wrong, your squad is about to come under assault from all sides. Build fortifications, ration your supplies, and hold the perimeter until friendlies can break through to your position.Marked as experimental because the bots do not know how to destroy player deployables yet. Releasing early to gather feedback on the mission concept while we work on improved bot behaviour.

• \[EXP] Superfob (Al Basrah) (5 players) - Command wants an outpost set up in a strategic area. Load up a convoy with supplies and pick the most defensible position, then build fast and hold your ground against the inevitable counterattack.
  Marked as experimental because the bots do not convincingly attack over open ground yet. Releasing early to gather feedback on the mission concept while we work on improved bot behaviour.

Community Voted on Weapon Skin

We are getting together a handful of themes for the community to vote on early next year. So stay tuned for that vote!

Thank you so much for playing Squad: Fireteam!