I don’t remember how I came across Ground Branch first, whether it was recommended through Steam or I saw some ex-military guy playing it on YouTube. Which ever came first, I could tell this would be the kind of shooter game I’d enjoy. It’s an early access game with a reasonable price tag from developers who made the old Tom Clancy games.

The developers make it very clear they want Ground Branch to a mil sim game other mil sim games are judged against. They emphasize a focus on realism and tactical thinking that I really enjoy. This realism is first on display at the loadout screen. There’s a decent selection of weapons to pick from. It’s all the standards you would expect in this kind of game, from your AK-47s to your M4s. Once you choose your arms, you get to add attachments. It’s not like most games where you click the add scope button and a scope gets put on your gun. You first have to add a set of picatinny rails to your rifle, then decide where you want your scope to sit on them. Put it too far forward and you’ll barely be able to see through it. For the scope I used I found it best to chock it pretty far back on the gun so you can see through the scope. The same applies for iron sights. You can mount those on the side of your rifle and switch between a scope and iron sights on the fly by tilting your gun. Again, how you place them on your gun matters. Too far apart or too close and you get a terrible sight picture. It’s mostly a game of trial and error until you find the configuration that hits the sweet spot for you. There is a fun factor to going to the range and messing with your rifle until it shoots how you want it to. You can also pack on other attachments like lasers, visible light flashlights, IR flashlights. I’m not a huge fan of the “tacti-cool” guns in real life, but in Ground Branch it makes sense to have some of these hangers on latched to your gun. You do have to consider the weight though. The heavier you make your gun, the quicker your aim starts to wobble just a bit as your arms get tired. It’s a balancing act of adding the most bells & whistles you can while keeping your gun practical.

You can also customize your operator’s kit. There’re cosmetic items, like your shirt and shoes, but there’s also harnesses that determine how many grenades & spare mags you can carry, but again weight is a factor too. The grenade selection is what you’d expect; frags, smokes, and flashbangs. You can outfit your spec ops dude with a helmet which you can then attach NVGs to, or I usually just ran around with a ball cap, which meant no night vision capabilities for me. You are allowed multiple saved loadouts so you can customize your gear to the mission at hand. I had a CQC loadout for maps that were tight corridors, a ghillie suit for the woodland areas, etc. Your actual dude can be customized a little bit, mainly skin tone and picking from a selection of face presets. There used to be facial hair options, but they’ve since been removed, to be added back at a later date.

Ground Branch’s gameplay is its strongest part. It leans hard into the “sim” part of a mil sim. There’s no real HUD to speak off, just a wristwatch to give you time and cardinal directions. You have to manually check your mag to see how much ammo you have, and even then, you just get a vague idea how empty it is. You can carry your firearm in different positions, each a tradeoff of saving arm strength vs being able to level it on an enemy quickly. You can crouch down but can’t go completely prone. I hope that gets added in. There’re no crosshairs outside the ones on your weapons, so you have to aim grenades using your hand to judge range. The game doesn’t allow clipping in your favor. If you are hugging a wall, you won’t have the space to man handle your gun to aim it. You have to either lean out before you can aim or step back from the wall. It’s the only game I’ve seen with that level of commitment to realism. The controls in general feel good while playing they are easy to learn and there’s no jankiness to them you might expect from an early access title.

This game isn’t going to hold your hand, it’s got an emphasis on skillful play. There’s a tenseness to the gameplay. If you are being sloppy, you can die without even knowing who shot you. You just hear the gun fire and you’re dead. Unfortunately, it’s let down by some spotty enemy AI. On lower difficulty settings they are manageable, on higher settings the game can get unfun. You can only take a few hits before dying, which, for realism’s sake, makes sense. The high difficulty AI enemies can get a bit omniscient & aim botty, shooting you before you even realize they’re there. This is the worst on levels that are large and open. This gameplay & AI feels like is was built around smaller, interior level designs. I’ll admit some of this may just be me needing to ‘get good’. This game is also meant to be played with a team. You can play it solo, that ex-military YouTuber did, but there’s a definite focus on having a squad you communicate and maneuver with. I was able to find a squad to join on Discord and we played a few matches and had fun pretending to be spec ops guys. We still failed most missions, because again the enemy AI is unforgiving. I played with some randos and that usually saw me dying in the first 2 minutes of the level. Playing as a “lone wolf” I usually stuck to levels that were close quarters, like the 767, to make up for my lack of support. There’s of course the standard PvP deathmatch modes that are a little more balanced since you’re playing against actual humans. This is where camo choices matter more. I don’t know if the AI reacts differently depending on how well you blend into the scenery, but real people do.

For an early access game, this game looks sharp. The one thing I love is the care put into the firing animations, you see your operator squeeze the trigger with each shot and it’s so smooth. Shell casings fly out and litter the ground. On open bolt guns you can see the bolt move with each shot. It’s those little things that go a long way to sell the realism. The enemies are a little more gamey. They run around and stop at random intervals to scan the area or shoot at someone. Cover is not something they understand. The world maps give you a variety of locations to deploy in from oil rigs and airports to cities and warehouses. There are a few ‘woodland’ maps that do start to run together in my head.

There’s no main story mode, it’s just maps with objectives like “Hunt the terrorists” or “Find the Intel”. AI companions, like a Rainbow 6 game, aren’t a thing. The game is still being updated, but lately it seems to be mostly fixes and small patches, nothing new has really come by to shake up the game. It feels very much like the foundation of a great game, but progress seems to be slow going. Some more customization options or game modes would help breathe some life into this early access title.

All in all, you can see the pedigree of the developers on display here. It’s commitment to realism and tactics like those in older military games is not going to be for everyone, but when the mainstream military games are either more Hollywood inspired or twitch shooters, it’s nice to have a slower paced game that rewards thoughtful movement and careful thinking. I hope this game gets a big update boost that really makes it take off and achieve some level of fame.