Squad Update 10.7 Playtest: How to Join and What to Test

Squad's Update 10.7 Open Playtest runs from November 6 to November 9, and it is built for players who care about performance numbers as much as new content. Offworld Industries is using the test weekend to trial a new map, Oskil River, and to push World Partition optimization across several existing layers. Nothing in this build is final, the studio says every range, radius and opacity value is still work in progress, which is exactly why it wants players running it on their own hardware rather than waiting for the finished patch. If you want to see where your rig lands before the update goes live, here is exactly how to get in, what to test, and what to do when something breaks.

01What's Actually Being Tested in Update 10.7

Offworld Industries frames this playtest as more than a map reveal. Alongside Oskil River, a new Eastern European map built around damaged settlements, open terrain and trench networks, the studio is running what it calls World Partition performance testing on four existing layers: Gorodok, Yehorivka, Narva and Mutaha. Oskil River itself already runs on World Partition, Unreal Engine 5's streaming system for large open worlds, so the whole weekend doubles as a stress test for how that tech holds up under real server populations.

Two other changes are riding along as a preview of Update 10.7: updated player models for the Middle Eastern Insurgent (MEI) faction, and a reworked Identify Friend from Foe (IFF) system that changes how you tell teammates from enemies at range. None of this is guaranteed to ship in its current form — Offworld Industries is explicit that every range, opacity value and tuning number here is work in progress and subject to change before the full 10.7 release.

02How to Download the Squad - Public Testing Branch

This is not a beta branch inside your existing Squad install. It is a separate app on Steam, and if you have never joined a Squad playtest before, it will not show up in your library automatically.

How to Join the Squad 10.7 Playtest

1. 1Open Steam, go to your account name in the top right, then Account Details > App Management > View Account Hidden Apps, and make sure hidden apps are set to show in your library.2 min
2. 2In your Steam library, search for 'Squad - Public Testing.' It's a separate free app from your regular Squad install, so install it alongside your main copy rather than replacing anything.1 min
3. 3Download and install 'Squad - Public Testing' like any other Steam title. It installs to its own folder and does not touch your existing Squad settings, mods or server favorites.10-20 min
4. 4The playtest only runs November 6 through November 9 (11 AM PT start and end), so launch the test branch from your library during that window to find live servers.1 min
5. 5Browse the server list for a community-hosted test server with players already on it. Offworld Industries is specifically after feedback across different hardware under real population loads.2-5 min
6. 6Rotate through Oskil River plus the retrofitted Gorodok, Yehorivka, Narva and Mutaha layers, and compare how each feels against your memory of the live build.varies

Once it is installed, launch it like any other Steam game. You do not need to touch your main Squad install, your regular game files, server favorites or settings are untouched by anything you do in the test branch.

03Why World Partition Matters for Your Frame Rate

World Partition is Unreal Engine 5's level-streaming system: instead of keeping an entire map loaded in memory at once, it streams terrain, buildings and props in and out based on where players actually are on the map. On a large combined-arms map like the ones Squad runs, that can mean the difference between steady frame times and stutter as you drive or sprint across a kilometer-plus battlefield. Oskil River was built on World Partition from the start, and Offworld Industries is now retrofitting Gorodok, Yehorivka, Narva and Mutaha onto the same system, which is why this playtest treats those four legacy maps as test subjects alongside the new one.

04World Partition: The Performance Settings to Watch

Performance has been one of the most discussed topics in the Squad community, and Offworld Industries is explicitly asking for feedback from "players across different hardware configurations" rather than a single reference build. That means your job this weekend is less about finding the best graphics preset and more about comparing how Gorodok, Yehorivka, Narva, Mutaha and Oskil River feel relative to how they ran before World Partition touched them. Keep your existing graphics settings as they are for this test; changing presets mid-weekend makes it harder to tell whether a stutter came from World Partition itself or from your own video settings.

Join a populated community-hosted server rather than an empty one whenever you can. Offworld Industries notes that servers for this test will open and close to match population, and the general public does not get access to the dedicated server-hosting branch, so your best read on real-world performance comes from playing alongside other testers during peak hours, not from a quiet solo session.

05Oskil River: What to Expect From the New Map

Oskil River is set in a war-torn Eastern European landscape, mixing heavily damaged settlements and urban blocks with open terrain and trench systems, the kind of layout meant to support both infantry pushes and armored play in the same match. Offworld Industries has also added more detailed environmental set dressing on this map specifically to make the space feel lived-in rather than just a performance testbed.

Treat the map itself as unfinished. The known issues list flags that textures and environmental prop placement on Oskil River are not finalized, and that vaulting out of the map's trenches can be difficult right now. If a trench fight feels clunky this weekend, that is a tracked issue, not something wrong with your settings.

06Identify Friend From Foe: How the New System Reads

The IFF rework is the change most likely to affect your actual gunplay, so it is worth understanding how it behaves before you judge it. With your weapon not raised, you will automatically see teammate name tags at closer ranges within your field of view; at medium range, those name tags shrink down to just an icon above the head. Multiple teammates can show at once if they are within the same radius, and Offworld Industries has tuned icon opacity based on both distance and how close a player is to your center of sight, with icons for fully obscured teammates disappearing entirely.

Raising your weapon to aim changes the rules. Pressing your ADS button immediately shows a friendly icon if a teammate is in view, but removes their name tag entirely, leaving just the icon, and it vanishes again once they leave your sight picture. The practical effect: no icon in your crosshairs during an ADS check is meant to make an enemy read highly likely. Magnification scopes adjust how far out these icons can be seen, scaled to the zoom level you are using. Every range and opacity value in this system is explicitly still in the tuning phase, so this weekend's job is to tell Offworld Industries where it feels too generous, too strict or too cluttered, not to assume the numbers are final.

07Known Issues and Quick Fixes

Offworld Industries published a known-issues list alongside the playtest, and most of it is worth keeping open in a second window while you play:

• Mouse cursor disappears after a map change. Press Tab or Enter a few times to bring it back.
• IFF icons can fail to appear when a teammate's hip is blocked by a wall, or may linger a moment too long after a friendly ducks behind cover.
• IFF ranges and opacity are still being tuned, so inconsistent read distances this weekend are expected, not a bug report in themselves.
• Player names and icons can appear over incapacitated players when they shouldn't.
• Occasional rubber-banding has been reported, consistent with a test build under active load.
• Oskil River trenches are hard to vault out of, and its textures and prop placement are unfinished.

None of these need a support ticket. They are already on Offworld Industries' list for this specific build.

08How and Where to Report Your Feedback

Offworld Industries is specifically asking for performance feedback and hardware reports, not just bug screenshots. The studio pointed testers to its Community Playtesting Discord as the main feedback channel for the weekend, and flagged on its own social account that the test covers Oskil River, World Partition performance, the MEI model update and the IFF changes together.

Get ready for the Update 10.7 Playtest and a sneak peek at what's coming! ⭐ Explore Oskil River, our new Eastern European map ⭐ World Partition performance testing ⭐ Updated Middle Eastern Insurgent (MEI) player models ⭐ Improvements to friend-or-foe identification ⭐ And

— Squad (@JoinSquad), Nov 3 on X

If you run the same map on both your normal Squad install and the test branch back to back, note your frame rate, any stutter on load, and how the new IFF ranges felt in a firefight, you are giving Offworld Industries exactly the kind of comparison data this playtest exists to collect. The window closes November 9, so whatever you want logged needs to happen before then.