Squad 10.7 Oskil River Open Playtest Opens Nov 6: New Map, World Partition, Reworked IFF

Offworld Industries just opened the door on the next Squad playtest, and this one is worth clearing the weekend for. From November 6 to November 9, anyone with Squad can jump into a separate Steam app called Squad - Public Testing and get hands on Oskil River—a brand-new Eastern European map—plus a chunk of the work heading for Update 10.7.

The Steam announcement from Offworld’s Astraea puts the window at 11 AM PT start and end (they labeled it UTC-7). For Central Time readers, that lands around noon to 1 PM CT, depending on whether you follow the UTC-7 tag or current Pacific clock math. Either way: install tonight, don’t wait until Sunday.

What’s actually in the build

The headline is the map. Offworld describes Oskil River as a war-torn Eastern European landscape—damaged settlements and urban scraps mixed with open ground and trenches, built for both infantry fights and armor. They’re leaning harder into environmental set dressing than usual, and they’re honest that it’s still unfinished: textures and props aren’t final, and the trenches can be a pain to vault out of.

That alone would fill a playtest. They’re also using the weekend to stress World Partition performance work the community has been asking about for a while. Oskil itself already runs on World Partition. Hosts will also spin up World Partition layers on four familiar layers:

• Gorodok
• Yehorivka
• Narva
• Mutaha

If you’ve been sitting out World Partition servers because of stutter or frame-time weirdness, this is the window Offworld wants hardware reports from—potato PCs and beasts both.

The 10.7 preview: IFF and new MEI models

Two other systems ride along as a preview of Update 10.7.

Identify Friend from Foe is getting a real rethink. Close range, without aiming, you automatically pick up name tags in your field of view. At medium range those shrink to an icon over a teammate’s head, with opacity that falls off by distance so the screen doesn’t turn into a name cloud. Fully obscured friendlies lose their icon. Aim down sights and a FRIENDLY icon snaps onto anyone friendly in your sight picture—name tags drop, the icon stays, and magnification changes how far that ID reaches. Offworld’s blunt note: if there’s no icon in your crosshairs, you can treat that as “highly likely an enemy.”

All of the ranges and opacity curves are still in the tuning phase. Known quirks already listed include icons failing when a hip is blocked by a wall, icons lingering after someone ducks behind cover, and names/icons showing on incapacitated players.

The other visual beat: updated player models for the Middle Eastern Insurgent (MEI) faction. No live ship date for 10.7 yet, and Offworld is clear nothing in this build is locked.

How to get in (and what not to expect)

This is not a beta branch on your main Squad install. Search Steam for Squad - Public Testing—it’s a whole separate app. If it doesn’t show up, turn on Hidden Apps in your library view, install it, and queue a test server during the window.

Community hosts will open and close servers as population needs it. The general public does not get the server-hosting branch for this test, so don’t plan on spinning your unit’s own box. Offworld wants feedback in the Squad Community Playtesting Discord, especially performance notes tied to your rig.

A few known issues before you flame the build: mouse cursor can vanish on map change (spam Tab or Enter), rubber-banding shows up sometimes, and Oskil’s WIP state means visual polish isn’t the point of the weekend.

Units are already lining up nights around it—7th Cavalry, for example, posted a public playtest op for Nov 8—so if your group usually runs one or two Squad nights a week, this is the easy “everyone install the testing app” ping.

Why this weekend matters for units

New maps reshuffle habits. Oskil’s mix of ruined towns, open approaches, and trench lines will force different HAB / FOB choices than the map your squad has muscle memory for. The IFF changes matter even more for organized groups: if the ADS-friendly icon sticks around after 10.7, SL callouts and “is that us?” moments get quieter. If World Partition finally feels good on Gorodok and Yehorivka, more of your members stop opting out of those servers.

None of that ships to live until Offworld locks the update. The playtest is the chance to yell about frame times and broken vaults before the patch notes go final.

Looking for Squad units already running regular ops? Browse the ones listed on Milsim Units.