Hello guys, thanks for your patience, the Early Access version of Tactical Operations will be released to all players on 19th December 2019. We have uploaded our first release candidate to Steam and got approval. Current alpha testers can play the current release candidate via our steam alpha AppID, while we are working on the last remaining tasks. When Early Access launches all keys for the alpha release on Steam will be invalidated as we move development to our Early Access Steam AppID, you will not require a new key as the game will be free to everyone via our Steam store page. Please keep in mind that you will still encounter bugs in Early Access, we will need feedback on these to fix them. We track bugs via our #bugs channel on our Discord server. For us, the most important information you can provide is how to reproduce a bug on our systems. Please give us as much information as possible, screenshots and videos are also useful in most cases. Since launching the public alpha we have had plenty of feedback from the players. Thanks to the community feedback we have already received, we have altered and even added features. A shortlist of the most important new features: New audio engine: The audio engine was exchanged; we switched to Wwise by Audiokinetic which resolved most of the issues we had with the old one. Most of our sounds were migrated and some reworked (keep in mind most of the sounds are still work in progress). Additionally, an optional HRTF audio output for stereo headphones was integrated (allows more accurate spatialization, but loses sound quality). Two more game modes: Capture the flag is available for all maps, some maps have received small layout changes to better accommodate gameplay for that game mode. Team Deathmatch is also available for all maps. It should be fine for casual playing, but the spawn-find logic might need some improvements (feedback appreciated). Grenades update: Introducing the new flashbang, nades were split into two slots; Tactical Grenades and Explosives. Players are now able to carry a HE + Smoke or Flash. The deadly range of the Atomic Bomb called HE grenade has been greatly nerfed. We appreciate feedback on all grenades (range, total damage, usage, etc.). UI code rework: The entire UI code has been rewritten to allow easier additions/changes and less bug vulnerability in the future. Please keep in mind that a full rewrite always introduces some small new bugs. We try our best to fix them, please report if you have any issues (reliably reproducible bugs are an easy fix for us most often). Also, note that the User Interface is still the same visually. We cannot currently work on this due to lack of dedicated menu designer and there are higher priorities. Early Access, and then? As you have already noticed we are still in development which means we will continue to improve the game after we launched into Early Access. After this Early Access release, bug fixing and balancing will still be prioritized. New content (weapons, public player statistics, maps) will be added later on. Within one month after release, we will provide a dedicated server package (Linux only) and a simple back-end tool to manage bans, admin/mod rights. In the current state of the game, we use quite a lot of 2d / 3d placeholder content. We hope that this public Early Access helps us finding new developers who would like to join us as we further develop Tactical Operations. We badly need 3d modelers/environment artists, a 3d animator, and a 2d designer.