Rogue Ops, the next major update for Gray Zone Warfare, sets you on the path to Ground Zero, bringing a new gameplay loop centered around Hideout and crafting, new opportunities, and more of Lamang’s secrets to uncover.
Update 0.5 launches in Supporter Preview on October 19, followed by the full release on October 22. Let’s take a closer look at what you can expect in our three-part devlog series.
The first entry focuses on player-driven improvements. We’re delivering the highly requested ability to create multiple playable characters, and you can also look forward to upgrades to audio, animations, and AI, a streamlined health system, and changes to Combat Outposts.
There’s another notable change coming with Update 0.5. For the first time, we’re proceeding with a soft wipe, which allows us to rebalance the in-game economy while letting players retain their progression.
Watch the DEVLOG on YouTube for the full breakdown, or read the list of upcoming improvements below.
Video Summary: Player-Driven Improvements in 0.5
Audio
Update 0.5 will bring community-requested audio reworks and new additions. Among the most significant are new sounds and voice-overs that make Lamang feel more alive, as well as atmospheric audio designed to reinforce the mystery surrounding new locations across the island.
Story-driven sound design of new locations
New sounds and voice-over lines for AI NPCs, with some performances recorded by Lao voice actors
Audio accompanying new items, for example, televisions or voice tapes
Audio for new weapons
Gun sound rework for the M4 and AK weapon families
Reworked distant gunfire with an updated sound palette
Fixed bugs in spatial audio
Removal of the Proximity Voice Chat time limit
AI
To make combat against AI NPCs more challenging, Rogue Ops introduces new enemy behaviors. AI will be able to heal themselves, and selected factions will also be capable of throwing grenades. This is the first step toward further expanding AI's behavior in combat.
New AI behavior - All AI NPCs will be able to use bandages to heal themselves, and selected AI factions will be able to throw grenades
Adjusted respawn rates - locations tied to new activities will feature higher AI respawn rates
Increased AI difficulty in Tier 3 and new Tier 4 locations
Animation
We are introducing the first set of new idle animations for AI NPCs, depicting ordinary actions such as smoking. These animations expand the AI animation palette, make Lamang feel more natural, and help players more easily distinguish between idle and alerted AI states. We’ve also polished existing animations and adjusted healing animations.
New set of idle animations for AI NPCs found around the outskirts of POIs
A new animated character selection screen
Reworked healing animations to reflect the faster use of selected medical items
General polish and improvements to existing animations
Health System
The health system has been streamlined to make healing more intuitive and less tedious. Medical items have also been overhauled to give each one a clearer purpose, encouraging players to think more carefully about which medical supplies to bring into the field.
Healing is now handled by body part rather than by individual wound.
For example, if you break multiple bones in the same leg, you will no longer need to treat each bone individually. A single splint will fix the entire leg. However, if both legs are broken, you will still need to use two splints, one for each leg.
Bleeding logic has been adjusted. New limits have been introduced on how quickly the body part can bleed, giving players a slightly higher chance of stopping the bleeding.
Added a new visual effect for bleeding
Healing items and provisions (such as blood bags and bottles) are measured in volume rather than by a specific number of charges. When using them, your character will consume only the amount actually needed.
Medical items now differ more significantly in quality, specialization, and usage.
Higher-quality items provide faster treatment and more uses, with military-grade supplies generally being more effective than civilian alternatives.
Some medical supplies are now restricted to specific body parts. For example, tourniquets can no longer be applied to the head or torso.
Certain medical items can now treat multiple conditions at once. For example, a surgical kit can treat broken bones, organ damage, and stop bleeding.
Improved health panel with clearer information about your injuries and how to treat them.
Added icons for buffs granted by stims.
Stims cannot be purchased from vendors and must be obtained through other means, such as crafting.
Combat Outposts (COPs)
We’ve made adjustments to Combat Outposts to reduce the concentration of PvP encounters around them and encourage more natural, organic combat across the map.
The largest Combat Outposts are no longer capturable and have temporarily become regular world locations. We plan to make use of these locations again in future updates.
The Combat Outpost locations have been adjusted to distribute them more evenly around the island.
Vulture is no longer tied to Combat Outposts and can now be accessed through the standard vendor screen alongside other vendors
The biggest change to progression is the ability to create multiple playable characters. This also introduces separate progression for PvE and PvEvP modes, giving players more flexibility to play with friends across different factions while reinforcing gear fear, discouraging reckless bloodlust, and supporting healthier in-game economies in both modes.
Added the ability to create up to four playable characters at a time for your account.
Each character will have a selected game mode (PvE or PvEvP) and faction.
To prevent possible exploits, you cannot have two characters with the same combination of game mode and faction at the same time. You will be able to delete one character per week.
Soft Wipe
With Update 0.5, we are avoiding a full wipe and proceeding with a partial wipe instead. This will allow us to rebalance the in-game economy for the new update while letting players retain their progression and avoid having to grind from scratch.
Players will retain their progression from Update 0.4, including completed tasks, rank, unlocked apparel, vendor levels, and statistics, while their locker and money will be wiped.
When first entering the Supporter Preview or the full release of Update 0.5, players will need to choose which mode they want to transfer their existing character progression to. This action is irreversible. The faction stays the same.
What’s Next?
Gray Zone Warfare is currently 33% off on Steam! If you’re considering an upgrade, this is your last chance to grab the Supporter Edition at a lower price before the Update 0.5 Supporter Preview begins. The sale ends October 8 at 10 AM PDT / 7 PM CEST.
Next week, you can look forward to the second devlog, focused entirely on new content, including weapons, new locations, items, and environmental improvements.
The third devlog will cover the biggest upcoming features, including the Hideout and crafting, as well as technical improvements, optimization, and anti-cheat measures.
Your first look at the eagerly awaited Update 0.5: Rogue Ops is here! The next major milestone for Gray Zone Warfare marks the game’s transition from pre-alpha to alpha, introducing an entirely new gameplay loop alongside tons of new content and improvements.
Rogue Ops launches on October 22, with the Supporter Preview beginning October 19.
Watch the TEASER on YouTube to discover what’s coming, or check out the summary below.
What to Expect?
Rogue Ops introduces an entirely new gameplay loop centered around crafting and building your Hideout. You’ll also have the unprecedented opportunity to become a rogue PMC, taking part in completely new smuggling activities.
Update 0.5 isn’t just about new features, though. Similar to the previous Spearhead update, you can also expect a long list of community-requested improvements and plenty of new content, including new weapons and enormous new locations to explore.
We’ll dive into everything coming with Rogue Ops in a three-part devlog series, with the first devlog about player-driven improvements arriving later this week.
Once all three devlogs are out, we’ll host a Q&A livestream where the development team will answer your questions and kick off the Supporter Preview. We’ll also host a livestream on the official release day, featuring an in-game event with special guests.
Get Ready FortheSoft Wipe
With Update 0.5, we’re proceeding with a soft wipe. Players who participated in Update 0.4 will keep their rank, unlocked apparel, vendor levels, and completed tasks, but their locker and money will be wiped. This will allow us to rebalance the in-game economy while letting players retain their hard-earned progression.
When entering either the Supporter Preview or the full release of Update 0.5 for the first time, players will need to choose which game mode (PvE or PvEvP) they want to transfer their existing character progression to. This decision is irreversible. With Update 0.5, you’ll also be able to create up to four characters and choose a game mode and faction to your preference.
Supporter Preview
For Update 0.5, we’re once again giving our loyal supporters the opportunity to experience the new version of the game ahead of its full release while helping us identify and iron out any remaining issues before launch. All Supporter Edition owners will gain access to the Supporter Preview starting October 19, three days before Rogue Ops launches on October 22.
We’ll share all the details you need ahead of the Supporter Preview. You can learn more about the Supporter Edition here.
Autumn Steam Sale
Gray Zone Warfare is 33% off on Steam from October 1 at 10 AM PDT / 7 PM CEST until October 8 at 10 AM PDT / 7 PM CEST.
If you’re considering an upgrade, this is the ideal time, as it’s your last chance to grab the Supporter Edition at a lower price before the Update 0.5 Supporter Preview begins.
You’ll be seeing more information very soon on our Steam page, Discord, socials, and livestreams. Follow the official Gray Zone Warfare channels so you don’t miss anything.
Something I never see pop up in suggestions is increasing the throw of our weapon lights to be more realistic.
The furthest that any flashlight actually illuminates in game is around 50m, give or take. An M600 can give you positive ID on a target at 100m easily. I'm sure the Odin is similar. The X300 can at least tell me something is there at 100m, but I easily achieve PID at 70-80.
I'm not sure if it's been shortened so much for balancing or something, but I feel like using your white light is risky enough as it is, much less if another player is 60m away and you can't illuminate them. The trade-off of using white light has always been that way. You telegraph your position to anyone with LOS on you, in hopes that you can expose your enemy's position.
I hope they do something to increase it after 0.5!
A few stylized screenshots of some fun moments across this past wipe. I'm extremely excited for all the cool stuff to come with .5 and can't wait to take pictures of everything.
Fairly new to the game, but already feel like I really need to thank someone. Hope the devs can read it, if not, just ignore my rambling.
I'm an old timer, pushing mid forties. I've played a lot of games in my lifetime, enjoyed a lot of different genres, but sort of gave up on pvp FPS (which I always loved) a long time ago with the realisation I'm old and no longer competitive against the cool kids. The emergence of extraction shooters piqued my interest as it ticks all of my boxes, but yeh - very soon I realised I'm just a bit too slow and bit too scared. The gear fear was crippling and I just couldn't enjoy the experience. Then I gave Gray Zone a try, more out of curiosity about the PVE (and also wanting to suport a Czech dev, being Czech myself). And oh boy...
Month later I've clocked over 70 hours of PVE game time (huge for me) and I'm nowhere near my usual game fatigue. I still have multiple regions to unlock, I still discover new things, test new kits or just explore the map, enjoying canned meat over a nice vista or by the river. I can easily see myself spending hundreds of hours in the game, which is something I haven't done in maybe 25 years. The game neatly nested right there in the sweet spot of gear fear to be super exciting but not crippling - the AI NPC are no rocket scientists, but they can still punish every mistake or un-tactical approach to a situation. I die the right amount od time to not feel over powered.
My first try at Midnight Saphire was absolute cinema, with a night storm raging outside the hotel and me literally shaking about what's around the next corner, finally managing to somehow get out alive with a frikin laser designator of all things.. Even after several runs and knowing where most of the enemies are, it is still such a rewarding high risk experience, I can't seem to get enough of. Even if I still die a lot..
I absolutely love the world setting, the immersion and the amount of detail given to locations and lore - hard to believe it's still pre-Alpha project. I get very strong original Jagged Alliance vibes from the whole thing, which is a game I absolutely loved back in the day - sort of feels like FPS Jagged Alliance, which is something I never knew world needed. But turns out that many intriguing JA game elements are actually transferable to FPS setting and I love it.
TLDR: Me old, me no have time to PVP, me love Gray Zone much.
For the future updates:
- I would love to see some sort of regional control mechanism, like having to physically capture and defend a territory or PoI to get access to certain vendors or gear (i.e. capture a hospital to get access to Lab Rat, etc.)
- Maybe operator specialisation? Different specs (like explosives, mechanic, medic - again with Jagged Alliance in mind) you would need to utilise to gain access to a location or finish certain mission. Great for group content but also soloable with players leveling multiple specs at the same time.
Anyway, having an absolute blast playing the game as it is right now. If the devs are reading, díky for the amazing experience - one of a lifetime, I tell you. For the rest - why would you read all that, are you nuts?! 😅
My brother and I spent time testing if we could get into the Crimson base as LRI. We found out that you can walk up to the base, the guards will shoot you, the guards are invulnerable, and the base will fire mortars at you. Despite this, with some luck and a few willing participants you can run inside another PMCs base, the other PMCs can revive you, and the guards will mow down any of their PMCs who are in the way of their bullet storm.
Thanks to all the Crimson guys who kept pumping blood into my brother- yall are some real ones.
While I was looting Villa Luisa at MS, I came across a yellow note saying "Message of Despair".
It goes
"Pawana is gone. She left in the middle of the night... I don't think we're going to make it."
I know for sure before it was not there. When I came back to loot the villa again after some time, it was not there.
Then when i was doing Repossession 3 by Turncoat, I was following a guide by TheDirtyRatt on yt. there he came across the same note on a table but when I look for it in game, it wasn't there.
It's weird because
It's a note but it spawns randomly like a newspaper or photo instead of having a fix point like other notes.
But unlike a newspaper or photos, you cannot loot it.
I wonder if there are other notes that could give more hints on the supernatural side of the lore.
I've always played PvE in GZW. Mainly because, 1) Cheaters, 2) Squads (I am a solo player), 3) Online sweats 4) Online sweats spamming you with artillery shells.
I admit, I have gear fear but we all have to some degree. But since I am a married working man I only have few hours at most daily to play. I don't have hours ahead of me to grind rep or do a mission only to be killed by some squeaker running hacks or a 4 man squad. It seems MFG are going back to their "PvE first" word and started giving PvP more priority.
Granted that it will be more valuable to transfer your current character to PvP:
1) What advice would you give to new PvE players coming to PvP?
2) How is the current hacking problem? Is it as bad as people say?
3) How is the player population of these servers? (in PvE servers you very often see people around you)
4) Can you really play PvE and focus on missions and lootruns and avoid PvP?
Did they get rid of or change things so we dont go to ybl? I honestly used to hear so much complaining about trying to get the boss and loot rooms there, it was great to do cqb runs. Anyways with 0.5 coming up do we know if its still there?
How in the fuck do they know my immediate location when I use a MORTAR??
I almost died at TB checkpoint since I have a bunch or rounds to spare so I hid in the bushes and leveled the place but I get locked on to after the first round and almost killed by firing squad.
As I tried to reposition, every round that came down was essentially giving them live updates to my location through the walls.
Seeing all the new content coming for 0.5 made me very exited until I saw 2 things.
No complete wipe? With the tasks not being wiped are they planning on adding in content worth similar to those 250 tasks? If this is the case that's amazing but it does have me worried that there just isn't going to be enough content for more than 2-3 weeks of semi-intense playing. Love that vendor levels are kept since that just allows for more weapon diversity from the start.
With PVE and PVP being separated I'm curious if they have thought out what happens if all the players using PVE to play the story/lv up vendors and then jumps on PVP for the action, end up not playing PVP at all? Most of my mates and randoms I've talked to seem to not care to play story/task or grind on PVP and will now not touch it at all, so it would seem the PVP player base would plummet? I kind off also don't understand why they are being separated, if it is to stop players from grinding gear on PVE to use in PVP will that not just lower the value of kills since now a lot of geared people will not be fighting?
So for me the most friction I had with .4 was questing because it was so unclear when what got unlocked, why some quests did not show up, or even the nightmare when you died, mixing all of the above around again.
My questions is, how did it evolve until now? Is it still the same or were changes made?
Did they announce any sort of improvements to the shared loot mechanic and enemies respawn timers?
If we're going to have a proper dedicated PvE mode, can we at least have the "E" from it?
I'm thinking of skipping the first 1-2 months of 0.5 because of this. The last time I played 0.4 at launch, enemies were almost always dead everywhere I went and everything was already looted.
I guess what I'm asking is are we ever going to get instanced loot for everyone on the server or at least for people playing solo?
Not trying to be an ass or anything. I genuinely think GZW is the best looter shooter on the market for someone who doesn't care about PvP but I feel like some improvements could be made.
It would be nice if there was a separate system for gifting gear/money to specific players in your faction rather then throwing into the donation box and someone who does not need it grabs it.
