Squad alpha version 10 out tomorrow, overhauls player movement and weapon handling

The tenth alpha version of military sim Squad is due out tomorrow (February 5), and will make substantial changes to the way players move around its 50vs50 multiplayer matches.

The trailer for the update, above, is more cinematic than informative, but you can find a list of things to expect on the game's forums (the thread refers to the public test for alpha version 10, which began in December). The biggest changes are around player movement, which mainly aim to make the game feel more realistic.

Transition time between going prone and standing has been bumped up, for example (so you can't dolphin dive anymore), as has the time it takes to aim down sights from a sprint. You can now sprint while crouched, however, and climb or vault over small walls, which should make the maps feel more flexible.

Weapons have been tweaked, too: peripheral vision while scoped has been reduced, and aiming down sights now has more zoom. Infantry guns get added adjustable sights, while machine gunners have access to a bipod.

Head to that forum page for a larger list of changes, including the addition of a three-minute pre-match "staging period" to allow teams to co-ordinate. Here's the game's Steam page.

Samuel is a freelance journalist and editor who first wrote for PC Gamer nearly a decade ago. Since then he's had stints as a VR specialist, mouse reviewer, and previewer of promising indie games, and is now regularly writing about Fortnite. What he loves most is longer form, interview-led reporting, whether that's Ken Levine on the one phone call that saved his studio, Tim Schafer on a milkman joke that inspired Psychonauts' best level, or historians on what Anno 1800 gets wrong about colonialism. He's based in London.