Squad factions: 13 in the publisher's own copy, 17 in its own notes

Squad's own store page and the studio's own website both say the game has 13 factions (Steam store page for Squad and joinsquad.com, both read 7 October 2026). The publisher's own update notes name 17, and every one of those names can be read on a page Offworld controls. Neither number is contradicted by the other, and the publisher has never said which set its 13 counts — so this page prints both, lists the 17 with the document each was read from, and adds the number that actually decides what you meet in a round: three.

Jump to the faction list and source notes.

The last figure is the live one and it answers a different question from the others: it is Valve's count of accounts with the game open, read from the Steam Web API for app 393380 (GetNumberOfCurrentPlayers for app 393380, 00:15 UTC on 17 October 2026). It counts sessions, not people on a map, and it knows nothing about factions — the Squad player count page takes it apart properly.

What the publisher's own copy says

Two pages that Offworld controls carry the number, and they disagree with each other about how much to show. First the store page, which prints it twice (Steam store page for Squad, read 7 October 2026):

"Featuring 13 factions, 24 massive maps, and a sweeping arsenal of weapons and vehicles, Squad creates a heart-thumping, visceral shooter experience that requires split-second decision-making in intense, realistic firefights."

"Squad features 13 factions from all over the world, including the United States Marine Corps, Australian Defence Force, and Canadian Army among many others."

Then the studio's own site, which prints the same number and puts a slider under it (joinsquad.com, read 7 October 2026):

"Play as 13 Factions in Global Warfare."

"All 13 factions have been painstakingly designed to provide not only a realistic, true-to-life experience but also a level of balance across the battlefield."

That slider is where the two numbers start to separate. Counted here, it carries six factions by name — the United States Army, PLA Navy Marine Corps, Canadian Army, Australian Defence Force, British Armed Forces and Insurgents — and then six maps (Fallujah, Black Coast, Sanxian Islands, Goose Bay, Harju and Al Basrah) before it ends on "And More" (joinsquad.com, read 7 October 2026). Six factions is what the page shows; 13 is what it says. The store page is tighter still: it names three.

The 17 names, and where each one is read

The list the community wiki keeps is longer than either official surface (squad.fandom.com, Factions, read 7 October 2026; the page itself was last edited on 15 November 2025, which its own history records). It sorts them into BLUFOR, PAC, REDFOR and Independent, conventional and unconventional. That grouping is the wiki's, and it is kept as the wiki's here. What is not the wiki's is the third column: every one of the 17 names can be read in a document Offworld publishes, and each row says which.

Seventeen names against a printed 13 is four more than the publisher's own copy admits to, which is this page's own subtraction and not a figure anyone publishes. The publisher's own material introduces them as arrivals rather than as a list: the Western Private Military Contractors came with Update 8.1 in September 2024, the Armed Forces of Ukraine with Update 10.0 in November 2025, and the PLA's three-way split is spelled out in Update 10.3 (17 February 2026, read 7 October 2026). None of those notes goes back and edits the 13 on the store page.

The number that actually limits a round

A roster of 17 sounds like choice. It is not, and the publisher changed the rule that governs it six days before this page was written:

"Players will now be able to choose from 3 teams/factions during the map voting phase, down from 6." (Update 10.6 release notes, 1 October 2026, read 7 October 2026)

The same notes tighten the repeats: the cooldown before you can replay a particular faction goes from 3 rounds to 5, and the cooldown on replaying a specific faction unit goes from 3 rounds to 4 (same notes, same read). So the number a player actually meets in the vote is three, and a faction that has just been played drops out of reach for five rounds. Three of 17 is about one in six — this page's own division, printed here because both inputs are above it.

New faces, and the one that was shelved

The two most recent arrivals are the two the publisher gives the most copy to. The Western Private Military Contractors arrived with the Hired Guns update and are described in terms the other factions do not get (Update 8.1 release notes, 23 September 2024, read 7 October 2026):

"Independent faction, which can match up against any other faction in the game."

And the Armed Forces of Ukraine arrived with Trident Strike, in the studio's own framing "a conventional BLUFOR faction" that "has all the tools needed to take on conventional REDFOR and Independent factions in the game" (Update 10.0 release notes, 12 November 2025, read 7 October 2026).

The one that did not arrive is the more useful entry. A French faction was raised in the Fall 2025 showcase, and the studio's own status update of 29 May 2026 works through what happened to it: "Back in our Fall 2025 Showcase, we talked about bringing the French faction into Squad. Since then, after listening to your feedback and evaluating the current state of our existing factions, we've started rethinking our approach" (Squad Status Update, May 2026, read 7 October 2026). It closes the door on nothing — "this doesn't mean we're closing the door on new factions" — and dates nothing either.

What changed this week

Update 10.6 landed on 1 October 2026, and two hotfixes followed on 2 October (Squad Update 10.6 and its two hotfix notes, on the app's own Steam news feed, read 7 October 2026). Two of its changes are the ones this page cares about: the map vote dropping to 3 factions from 6, and the faction and unit replay cooldowns rising to 5 and 4 rounds. The update also added a party system for grouping up before a match, which is the mechanism that decides who ends up on which side with you. Six days before this page, then, the roster was unchanged and the way you meet it was.

Every claim on this page, sorted

Still not on the official record

• Which set the 13 counts. The store page prints 13 and names three; the studio's site prints 13 and shows six; the notes name 17. No page read for this article says which of those the number is meant to cover, and no page says the count has been revised.
• A roster in one official place. Every one of the 17 names can be found in publisher material, but not in one list: they are spread across store copy, a website slider, and update notes going back to 2024. The community wiki is the only single page holding all of them, and it is not the publisher's.
• Per-faction populations. Valve's count endpoint answers once per app, not per faction, so it cannot split 5,076 across the 17 (Steam Web API, read 7 October 2026). No other source publishes the split.
• Per-faction win rates. Not published by the publisher, not published by Valve, not published by any tracker read for this page.
• A date for the French faction. The 29 May 2026 status update explains why the plan changed and gives no new date or window.
• What the community thinks, at the source. Reddit, where the faction arguments happen, answered this machine with HTTP 403 on 7 October 2026, so no thread was re-read at the source for this page and no community opinion is quoted as if it were.