Operation: Harsh Doorstop 2.0 Preview: Platoons, Armor Thermals, and a Workshop Security Fix

For a while, Operation: Harsh Doorstop went quiet. The free Unreal Engine milsim from Drakeling Labs has always moved on its own clock—built by part-time and volunteer developers who hold day jobs—but the news feed still went dark long enough that players started asking if something was wrong.

On October 5, founder Connor “Bluedrake42” Hill answered that. He’d spent the last three months in U.S. Air Force Basic Military Training with no personal devices. While he was offline, the rest of the team kept shipping work on what they keep calling the game’s next major update—2.0 in the later hotfix notes, and the biggest content push they’ve teased yet.

What came back with him

The October 5 post is less a patch note and more a showcase reel. Hill linked a pile of short weapon videos, new vehicle and map clips, and a feature list already running in the multiplayer playtest build. Among the highlights he called out:

• Vehicle claiming, so squads can lock armor and airframes to their own people
• Constructible mortar, anti-tank, and machine-gun emplacements
• Laser-guided missiles
• Night and thermal vision
• A platoon system for armored and airborne squads
• Vehicle bot support and repair stations
• An overhauled UI, particle system, and ammo / occupancy indicators
• A campaign storyline and progression system

That last one matters for solo and co-op players who bounce between unit nights and Instant Action. The rest is pure combined-arms bait: emplacements you can dig in, vision gear that changes night fights, and squad rules that stop randoms from yoinking the only tank on the map.

Hill was careful not to oversell a ship date. “I still have barely scratched the surface of all the features we’ve already implemented for this upcoming update,” he wrote, and closed with the line the project keeps coming back to: “We’re still only getting started.”

Platoons, armor, and why Project Reality fans will recognize this

Five days later, on October 10, he dug into the systems that will change how organized groups actually play.

Until now, Harsh Doorstop only really had an infantry platoon. The upcoming update adds Armored and Airborne platoons—squad categories that gate unique kit and the vehicles that kit unlocks. Squad leaders (and their members) can claim vehicles, lock them to the squad, or hand them off. Heavy assets also lean on crewman / pilot gear requirements and minimum squad sizes, so you can’t roll a crewed vehicle as a one-man circus.

Hill said he first sketched platoons more than eight years ago while running a Project Reality server, when Battlefield 2 modding couldn’t stretch far enough. OHD was built to finally do that idea properly. He’s already floating specialized follow-ons—JTAC work for Airborne, JFSS-style roles for Armored—and flagged commander roles for a later blog.

Armor itself is getting more than a paint job. The post promises a full sound and handling overhaul, night vision and thermal imaging on the vehicles that should have them, and new destruction particle work with dynamic fire. That’s the “Armored Warfare” beat players have been waiting on since the earlier teaser trailers, and it’s already in the closed playtest for WORLD WAR / supporter edition owners.

The security hotfix that couldn’t wait for 2.0

While the big update is still cooking, live players got something more urgent. On October 22, Drakeling Labs shipped Hotfix v0.14.2.2—a critical security patch for Steam Workshop vulnerabilities that hit Unreal Engine games using Workshop content.

The team’s note is short on exploit theater and clear on timing: programmer SRDDonkey patched the issues quickly, and shipping the hotfix now—instead of bundling it into 2.0—was necessary. Community researchers had reported Workshop map flows that could abuse Unreal’s Launch URL behavior with file:// paths; the studio thanked players for helping them diagnose and fix it fast.

If you run OHD Workshop maps or host community servers, this is the one you update for first. The feature show can wait. Your players’ machines shouldn’t.

Still free, still Early Access, still not “done”

Harsh Doorstop remains free-to-play on Steam, Early Access, and openly built by a working-class volunteer crew—medical techs, construction workers, service members, and people who keep day jobs while they ship milsim systems other studios charge for. The 2.0 / Armored Warfare package is in multiplayer playtest for supporter builds; it has not dropped for everyone yet, and the team is still posting “more information on the upcoming 2.0 update coming very soon.”

For units that already treat OHD as a training ground or a low-barrier combined-arms night, the October posts are the clearest signal in months that armor, air, and night ops are about to get real structure—not just more kits in a crate.

Looking for Harsh Doorstop groups to run with when those platoons land? Browse the units listed on Milsim Units.