Gray Zone Warfare's Rogue Ops Supporter Preview Is Live: What Carries Over and What Gets Wiped

Rogue Ops is here, at least for some of you. MADFINGER Games switched on the Update 0.5 Supporter Preview for Gray Zone Warfare just before noon Central today, three days ahead of the full release on October 22. "The Rogue Ops Supporter Preview is now LIVE," the studio posted on X, pointing everyone to a Steam post with access instructions and a work-in-progress changelog.

The best part for anyone jumping in early is that this isn't a throwaway test server. MADFINGER says any progress made during the preview carries over to the full release.

The Supporter Preview went live today. Image: MADFINGER Games via Steam.

Who gets in, and how

You need the Supporter Edition. If you own the base game, Tactical or Elite, you can upgrade from the store page and pay only the price difference. Then it's a Steam branch switch: right-click Gray Zone Warfare in your library, open Properties, go to Game Versions & Betas, and pick supporter-preview. If the branch doesn't show up, MADFINGER suggests restarting Steam or toggling offline mode and back.

One warning before you click. Once you switch, you can't go back to 0.4.7.6. Everyone who stays on the public branch got a small hotfix today that does nothing except add pop-ups telling you the preview exists.

Not everyone loves the setup. One player grumbled that the name made it sound like regular buyers aren't supporters. The studio's reply was friendly and direct: "They are, Henry. Some just support a bit harder, and in return, we allow them to test the game early and provide feedback so we can polish the experience for the rest of the supporting player base."

The soft wipe, and the choice you only make once

This is the part worth reading slowly. There's no full wipe. You keep completed tasks, rank, unlocked apparel, vendor levels and stats. Your locker, equipment and money are reset so MADFINGER can rebalance the economy around the new systems.

What survives the 0.5 soft wipe. Image: MADFINGER Games via Steam.

The catch is that the first time you load into 0.5, you have to choose whether your existing character goes to PvE or PvEvP. That's irreversible, and your faction stays the same. It matters more than it used to, because Rogue Ops also brings multiple characters. You can now have up to four, one for each mix of mode and faction, and account wipes are gone. If you want a fresh start somewhere else, you make a new character instead. You can delete one character a week.

So if your group splits its nights between Joint Operations and Warfare, it's worth deciding where your veteran character belongs before anyone loads in. Rebuilding a main from zero because you clicked the wrong button at 1 a.m. is a rough way to start an update.

What's actually new

The headline is the Hideout, which unlocks once you hit a certain rank. It has a Laboratory for medical items, stims and other chemical products, an Electronics Workshop for breaking down devices into intel and parts for tracking tags and hacking tools, and a Utility Room that powers the other two. Stims and tracking tags can't be bought from vendors anymore. You have to craft them.

Hacking tools come in three tiers and let you get past keypads and card readers without a key or code. In some cases, MADFINGER says, hacking is the only way into an area or safe.

Smuggling is where things get spicy. You take contraband you produced to a vendor, grab a visibly marked backpack, and get one hour to deliver it across Lamang. In Warfare, accepting the job alerts opposing factions and puts Hunting zones on the map, so other players can come take your payday. In PvE, AI fills that role.

The rest of the changelog is long. Here are the bits people will notice first:

• Three new Tier 4 locations: the RLSL-1 radio observatory, Lakevale Sanctuary asylum and the Northern Reach research site, plus more than 15 smaller spots, including raidable drug huts
• Seven new weapons, including the Benelli M4, FAMAS, G3, G36, Glock 18C, AUG and UMP, and 370 new weapon parts
• A streamlined health system where one treatment covers a whole body part, with lower bleed rates across the board
• Smarter AI that treats its own wounds, throws grenades, flanks out of cover and hunts down downed players
• Major Combat Outposts temporarily decommissioned, minor COPs redistributed, and Vulture now a regular vendor
• About 10% higher FPS, a move to Unreal Engine 5.7, and new in-house anti-cheat on top of Easy Anti-Cheat and Anybrain

Is it still a milsim?

That's the question hanging over all of this. Insider Gaming's take on the final devlog was that the game is "becoming much more than just a Mil-Sim," with writer Grant describing it as "blossoming into a Merc-Sim." Labs, drug huts and smuggling runs definitely push it that way. But the ballistics, the medical system and the slow, deliberate pace that drew units to Lamang are all still here, and the new AI might make Tier 3 and Tier 4 areas more demanding than ever.

Everyone else gets Rogue Ops on October 22, along with a launch livestream and a new Twitch Drops campaign. Until then, the Supporter crowd gets three days to find the bugs and figure out where the good loot went.

If you're looking for a squad to run smuggling routes with, or a group that sticks to PvE, you can browse Gray Zone Warfare units on Milsim Units.