Squad’s New Oskil River Map Is Playable This Weekend: Open Playtest Dates, How to Join and What’s in Update 10.7

Squad Oskil River is the military shooter's new Eastern European map, and you can play it this weekend. Offworld Industries is running an open playtest from 6 November to 9 November on the free Squad - Public Testing app. It also tests World Partition performance improvements on four older maps, and previews Update 10.7 changes including a reworked friend-or-foe identification system and new Middle Eastern Insurgent player models.

Squad Oskil River playtest at a glance

When is the Squad Oskil River playtest?

Offworld says the test runs "this weekend from 6 November to 9 November", starting and ending at 11am PT. One thing to watch: the post labels that as UTC-7, but US Pacific time moved to UTC-8 when the clocks changed on 1 November. So the start is either 18:00 GMT / 19:00 CET (if the UTC-7 label is right) or 19:00 GMT / 20:00 CET (if 11am Pacific is right). Check the playtest Discord before you plan your evening.

How do you join the Squad playtest?

1. Look for Squad - Public Testing in your Steam library. It's an entirely separate app, so no special branch is needed.
2. If you can't see it, turn on viewing Hidden Apps in your Steam library.
3. Install it and join a test server during the playtest window.
4. Share feedback on the Squad Community Playtesting Discord. Offworld especially wants performance reports from different PC setups.

What is the Oskil River map like?

Oskil River is set in a war-torn Eastern European landscape. Offworld describes heavily damaged settlements and urban areas alongside open terrain and trenches, with room for both infantry and armoured fights, and more detailed environmental set dressing than usual. It's still a work in progress: many textures and props aren't final, and Offworld warns the trenches may be hard to vault out of.

What is World Partition in Squad?

World Partition is the performance work Offworld wants to stress-test. It says performance is "a frequent topic of discussion" in the community, so it wants real data from players on all kinds of hardware. Oskil River already runs on World Partition, and hosts will be asked to run extra World Partition layers on Gorodok, Yehorivka, Narva and Mutaha.

How does the new friend-or-foe system work?

Telling friend from enemy has always been a big part of Squad. The new identification system being tested changes how that works:

• Close range, not aiming: you automatically see name tags on players in your field of vision.
• Medium range: a teammate's name shrinks to just an icon above their head, fading with distance so icons don't stack up. Fully hidden teammates lose their icon.
• Aiming down sights: a FRIENDLY icon appears straight away on anyone friendly in your sight picture, replacing the name tag and vanishing when they move out of it. Magnified scopes change how far you can identify people.
• No icon in your sights? Offworld's advice is that you can assume it's "highly likely an enemy".

All ranges and opacity settings are still being tuned. Known issues include icons not appearing when a player's hip is behind a wall, and icons staying up too long when a friendly runs behind cover.

What else is in Squad Update 10.7?

The playtest also shows updated player models for the Middle Eastern Insurgent faction. Offworld stresses that everything is "still subject to change" and hasn't given a release date for Update 10.7 or for Oskil River on the live game. It also lists bugs to expect, including the mouse vanishing on map change (press Tab or Enter a few times) and occasional rubber-banding.

How much is Squad?

Squad costs £29.75 / $39.99 / €33.99 on Steam, where about 7,800 people were playing when we checked on 4 November. A console version is on the way; see our article on Squad coming to PS5 and Xbox.

Watch the Squad trailer

There's no Oskil River trailer yet. This is the official console announcement trailer from Squad's YouTube channel.

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