A new location for mixed battles, inspired by the coastal regions in the Middle East!

With the upcoming major update, a new location for mixed battles comes to the game - meet “Sun City”, a location based on the resort towns of the Middle East!

In this location, our artists tried to convey the diversity of landscapes and architecture of the coastal zone of the Middle East. In the centre of the location is a small resort town, with its white houses, bike lanes, bridges and terraces. By the sea is a beach, a wide and mostly open area with golden sand. In the suburbs, there’s a small industrial zone among the blooming fields.


Sun City will be waiting for you in the upcoming War Thunder major update we are working on right now. Don't miss our devblogs and be the first to know about the most interesting things to come. While we are completing the update, you can become one of the first testers of Israeli ground vehicles that will also appear in the game with the release of the next update!

Today we want to talk about the global graphical improvements, 4K/8K game client, and artistic neuronet.
The latest War Thunder vehicle and asset models are created in 4K, or even 8K resolutions, but textures of such sizes significantly increase the size of the game client. In addition, the game has a lot of content created with textures in 2K resolution, for example, some of the aircraft with which War Thunder began its journey back in 2012. But as time goes by, monitor resolutions, hard drive sizes and internet speeds grow, so we want to make the game look better. We are introducing a new ULTRA HD texture pack that brings a higher resolution to War Thunder that meets the standards of modern games. It's time to change for the better, and we are taking this step in the next update of the game!

To move to the new graphics with high resolution textures, we need to rebuild all the textures in the game. Three types of game client will be available for players after the update is released: minimal (minimal size, suitable for trial playing at 720p resolution), standard, with textures of the same resolution as you see them in War Thunder now, suitable for playing at resolutions up to 1080p; and improved, which will bring textures of tanks, planes, helicopters and elements of the game environment to 4K/8K resolutions, and which is suitable for playing at Ultra-HD (1440/2160p). Unfortunately, even players who prefer to use standard or minimal clients, will have to download a rather large update once, with the release of the upcoming update. This is required for the technical features of the transition to high-resolution global rendering, as well as improved technology for creating land surfaces that also requires rebuilding most of the textures of the game environment.

Players who wish to upgrade to UHD textures will be prompted to download additional game data that will be installed after the standard client. The same option for selecting texture quality will be available to owners of new generation game consoles as free DLC (make sure you have enough space and 4K support). For previous generation consoles, the client with high-res textures will not be available due to lack of memory in the consoles.

Most of the textures of ship models, tanks and up-to-date elements of the game environment do not require any modifications to go into ultra-high resolution format - they were originally created in 4K and 8K formats, and then compressed to save disk space. However, things are different with aircraft textures. The fact is that most of the War Thunder aircraft textures were created in direct relation to the dimensions of the models, which means that we do not have these files in the sizes necessary for high-quality display in high resolution. There was only one way out: redo all the textures for most of the aircraft in the game! It would take several years for our artists to complete such a task, even with the help of partner studios (one plane is at least 8 texture maps, apart from cockpit textures. Gaijin programmers came to the rescue, creating a neural network that was taught how to scale textures based on a complex analysis of the original image, and the network was trained precisely on the textures of War Thunder vehicles. The essence of the technology lies in the fact that artificial intelligence analyzes image areas and individual pixels in them and supplements the image with new pixels. The resolution increases, thus improving the quality of the final texture.

The neuronet processed the textures of aircraft, helicopters, instrument panels and the interior of cockpits, as well as environmental elements in the locations - the textures of buildings, rocks, sidewalks and cobblestone pavements, curbs, palisades, and many others. Artificial intelligence did an excellent job - the quality of all textures in the game has increased significantly without loss of detail. We noticed only one aspect of the neural network algorithms in the processing of the smallest technical inscriptions on the fuselages of aircraft. These service marks for ground services were not readable before, but after processing by the neuronet, their shape became bizarre, reminiscent of the Elvish script from Tolkien's works - the neural network doesn’t know specific languages. However, all more or less significant inscriptions, marks and decals on the hulls and fuselages of the vehicles remained perfectly readable, so we consider this assumption quite acceptable. together with a significantly increased quality of textures in general. Corrections of such inscriptions will require manual work, which we will be carrying out over future updates.
You will first meet the ultra high-quality War Thunder in the upcoming open dev testing session of the next major update. Scalable textures, new surface rendering, as well as numerous improvements and fixes will be brought to the game by the updated graphic engine; Dagor Engine v. 6.5. The Gaijin dev team are polishing them right now in order for you to have a chance to test them and leave your feedback. More devblogs about graphic features of the War Thunder major update are on the way - and you’d better not to miss them!

Fans of sports competitions freeze in anticipation of the football referee’s whistle. Step into the shoes of a football tank commander and hit the opponents' goal. This is the first of two popular events that not only return, but get better with valuable rewards for participants and winners!




In this event, rewards will be given for goals and assists. The more points you score during the entire event, the more prizes you will get!

Silver decorations for 10, 50 and 100 goals and assists.
Coupon for gold decorations for 300, 600 and 1000 goals and assists.

Coupon for one of the decals: "Dragons" Team banner or "Tigers" Team banner for 200 and 400 goals and assists.

Coupon for the football camouflage for the M551 for 500 and 800 goals and assists.

• M551: Football camouflage "Tiger"
  
• M551: Football camouflage "Dragon"

PlayStation and Xbox players can exchange each coupon they receive for 100 Warbonds.

You can track your progress by clicking on “Nickname → Achievements → A fiery ball”.
The main stage begins at 16:00 GMT on the 11th of March. From that point on, every goal and assist in the event will bring you points. More points means more valuable rewards.

Before the main stage, you can participate in the training event.

“A fiery ball” is available in the events 3x3 (for random players, not in a squad) and 4x4 (for squads).

Participation is possible in the following time windows: 16:00-21:00 GMT and 00:00-05:00 GMT. Matches that have already begun will be finished even after the end of the gaming window and all the points earned in them will be counted.
The match has 2 regular 5 minute halves each. In the case of a draw, players will get 2 additional periods of 1.5 minutes each. If the results after two additional periods is still a draw - the victory will not be awarded to any team.
To win in the 3x3 match prematurely it is necessary to achieve a 3 goal advantage.
To win in the 4x4 match prematurely it is necessary to achieve a 5 goal advantage.
Every day for your first victory in the “Fiery ball” event you will get a battle trophy with one of the random prize out of possible one:

• 3-5 universal backup vehicles
  
• 20-50% RP booster for 3-10 battles
  
• 20-50% SL booster for 3-10 battles
  
• Random wager
  
• Random order

You can track the status of your daily trophy by clicking on “Nickname → Achievements → A fiery ball → Daily reward“. You can get a new trophy from 16:00 GMT the following day.

In this digest we would like to tell you about our continuing work on improvements and fixes in the game. You can find information about all updates that have been released in War Thunder on the website special section.



Recently every artillery strike in ground battles began with a few hits of targeting smoke: this mechanic allowed lighter vehicles to react in time to the fire and try to escape. But in the original implementation the smoke markers were rather bright and stood out too much.

In its updated form they will fit much better into the overall colour picture of a battle and the quality of the detailing of the effect itself has been increased. You can check it out already!



It is very difficult to navigate through almost 2,000 game units, if not just the detailed cards for shells, missiles and of course the vehicles themselves. The data from these built-in War Thunder reference cards is almost always calculated within the game and unfortunately there was an error in this process.

This time we found the issue that affected more than dozen vehicles and caused an error in the displaying of their armour thickness. Although the problem applied only to the cards and the initial thickness in battles was counted correctly we fixed the bug for many different vehicles from different nations: Т-34-57, Т-34-57 (1943), Т-34 (1st Gv.T.Br.), Т-34 (1943), Type 62, Type 62 (USSR), T26E5, Strv m/41 S-I, Centurion Mk.5/1 (RAAC), Т-10А, Т-10М, BT-5, RBT-5, 9P149, 9P157, Sturer Emil, VK 45.01 (P), FIAT 6614, Tortoise, A.C.IV, M15 CGMC and M3 GMC.



This was also a bug and occured when trying to zoom in from the 3rd person view (commander view). The gun aiming marker shifted slightly and disrupted aiming. This annoying problem is already a thing of the past!

• Strv m/40L, Strv m/39 — coaxial machine guns Ksp m/36 have been changed to Ksp m/39.
  
• Type-10 — hull tilt angles have been corrected while the suspension control is enabled (report).
  
• Type-10 — pivot speed has been increased.
  
• VEAK 40 — vehicles in test drive have been changed to modern ones.
  
• PT-16/T14 — targeting limits of the AA machine gun have been corrected to avoid shooting through the elements of the turret top.
  
• Bkan 1C — 3rd person view camera position has been fixed.
  
• T-34-57, T-34-57 (1943), T-34 (1 Gv.T.Br.), Т-34 (1943), Type 62, Type 62 (USSR), T26E5, Strv m/41 S-I, Centurion Mk.5/1 (RAAC), T-10A, Т-10M, BT-5, RBT-5, 9P149, 9P157, Sturer Emil, VK 45.01 (P), FIAT 6614, Tortoise, A.C.IV, M15 CGMC, M3 GMC — Armour values in the info card have been corrected.
  
• Type 87 RCV — gear select ratios have been specified.
  
• Type 87 — gunner sight magnification has been specified.
  
• Grant I, Grant I (USA) — the thickness of the armour plate below the 75mm gun has been fixed from 12.7 mm to 22,2 mm.
  
• AS 42 — gun recoil has been removed.
  
• Targeting marker tilt, occurring after zooming in  while in 3rd person view in SB, has been fixed.
  
• VT1-2, Strv 103-0, Strv 103A, Strv 103С — vehicle movement has been fixed, while looking around with a mouse with hull control enabled.

• Etendard IVM - calculator for the constantly computed impact point (CCIP) for bombs has been added (report)
  
• Sa`ar - a bug has been fixed where in some cases wing components might remain on the wing tips when the wings are torn off.
  
• Firebrand TF.Mk.IV - separate rocket launch has been added for the setup of “2х 250lbs G.P. Mk.IV bomb + RP-3 rockets”
  
• ITP (М-1) - separate rocket launch has been added for the RS-82 and RBS-82 rockets
  
• Kfir C.7 - launch order has been corrected for the Zuni Mk32 Mod 0 ATAP rockets.

• USS Candid - display for the first stage ammo count has been corrected for the 76mm gun.
  
• Explosives type of the British AP and semi-AP round has been changed for the following guns:
  
• -343mm/45 Mk 5(H) - from Lyddite to Shellite
  
• -152mm/45 BL Mk XII - from Lyddite to TNT
  
• -152mm/50 BL Mk XXIII - from Lyddite to TNT
  
• -152mm/50 QF Mk N5 - from Lyddite to TNT
  
• -190mm/45 BL Mk VI - from Lyddite to TNT
  
• TNT equivalent of the Shellite has been corrected to 0.94.

The current provided changelog reflects the major changes within the game as part of this Update. Some updates, additions and fixes may not be listed in the provided notes. War Thunder is constantly improving and specific fixes may be implemented without the client being updated.

We’re about to update our graphical Dagor Engine to version 6.5. Today we would like to talk about new capabilities of surface rendering in the War Thunder game environment.

In one of the previous updates of the Dagor graphics engine, we transferred the War Thunder graphics physically based rendering. We talked in detail about the principles of material differentiation and their physical parameters that the Dagor Engine deals with when rendering surfaces, as well as the principles for calculating the reflectivity of various surfaces within a complex physical model.

Despite the complexity of the global illumination and light reflection models, rendering allows certain assumptions. In reality, natural soil surfaces feature a very heterogeneous ability to reflect and scatter light. Such surfaces are very textured, so direct light, repeatedly reflected from the edges of soil particles, continuously refracted and creating a myriad of microshadows, is actually absorbed by them. On more reflective land surfaces - such as snow, sand, rocks, and gravel - light reflects and scatters in the same way, but in this case, a significant part of the direct light is reflected onto surrounding objects. Previously, the surfaces of the War Thunder game environment had the following properties: albedo, roughness, micro normality, metallicity and a translucency. The translucency parameter was responsible for the partial absorption of direct sunlight in order to harmonize the parameters of materials for dynamic global illumination in real time, and achieve realistic looking scenarios in shading, reflection and the scattering of light. The ability to reflect light for all dielectrics was considered constant at 4%, like most dielectrics in the real world. But to more accurately materialize surface properties, it is desirable to have such parameters as reflectance (the ability of the surface to reflect, rather than scatter light), and visibility - the percentage of visible light, taking into account the surrounding microsurface, apart from the model’s geometry.

The Dagor Engine 6.0 allowed us to introduce these parameters into the calculation model, but the details of the environment textures themselves were not in the game, both for technical reasons (client’s size), and because of the fact that many environmental textures were made on previous versions of the Dagor Engine . As a result of this assumption, we were not able to reliably materialize the details of the textures from various surfaces. In addition, artifacts caused by the effect of the translucency map were sometimes observed - for example, an unnatural appearance of grass-covered hills when viewed against the sun.

In the Dagor Engine version 6.5 we have moved to completely reliable reflections from the texture elements of various surfaces, and also introduce microshadows. These algorithms perfectly complement the displacement mapping technology that is used to create War Thunder locations. At the same time, we have updated the ambient occlusion for all types of surfaces in the game, due to which the appearance of the ground and objects of the game environment in locations has been noticeably improved.

Each of the locations’ elements - from the smallest pebble to a huge rock - now reliably reflects light with the edges of its textured surface and creates realistic shadows. These micro reflections and micro shadows interact in the global illumination system and make War Thunder locations even more authentic. Together with the actual land surfaces and objects of the environment, the appearance of puddles, clods of dirt, traces of tracks on the ground, sand and snow have also been improved.

From the upcoming Developers Diaries you will know more cool stuff about new graphical features and options in the improved Dagor Engine 6.5. Stay tuned, be the first to know the news!

If you want to check interactive comparison before/after, please check article on our website.

How do you prove a right to own something valuable in the pirate community? Especially if incredible floating islands are at stake amongst which your secret base will look great. The air battle has begun!

Pirate clans of bears and foxes continue their dispute over the area of floating rocks. With eight unique aircraft and a stunning combat location, air pirate battles are back with valuable rewards for participants and winners making it even better!
This event has 10 stages. Each lasting 2 days. 50 kills or assists for destruction during each stage will bring you one completed task. Complete more challenges and earn more rewards!

• For 4 and 7 completed tasks

Humanized icons of our “heroes”. Just as confident as their furry alter egos.

• For 9 and 10 completed tasks

Charismatic air pirates in your avatar picture will not disappear even after the event is over.

These avatar pictures will be given out as coupons which can be applied to your account or traded on the market.

• Decal for 2 completed tasks.
  
• Loading Screens for 5 and 8 completed tasks.

You are the part of the most colorful War Thunder game event and everyone around you will know it

If you already have avatars with humanized event characters or decals you will receive alternative awards in silver lions instead of these rewards.

You can follow your progress by clicking on your “Nickname → Achievements → “TailSpin”.
Every day for your first victory in the “TailSpin” event you will get a battle trophy with one of the random prize from the available items:

• random prize from the available items:
  
• 3-5 universal backup vehicles
  
• 20-50% RP booster for 3-10 battles
  
• 20-50% SL booster for 3-10 battles
  
• Random wager
  
• Random order

You can track the status of your daily trophy by clicking on “Nickname → Achievements → TailSpin → Daily reward“. You can get a new trophy from 17:00 GMT the following day.

Dear friends! On International Women’s Day we would like to remind you how important it is to give attention, kind words, love and of course flowers to our most beautiful and irreplaceable girls. And of course we invite you to complete your collection of holiday decals in War Thunder!

• Play 3 battles in vehicles of rank III or higher (70% activity in the battle) and get the unique “March 8th” pinup decal.

“March 8” decal

You can follow your progress by clicking on your “nickname → Achievements → International Women's Day.

• The engine sounds for enemy aerial and ground vehicles now have a higher priority than allied vehicles.
  
• The track sounds on enemy ground vehicles now have a higher priority than allied vehicles.
  
• The engines for enemy and allied vehicles sound quieter as the engine speed decreases. An idling vehicle will again sound significantly quieter than a vehicle in motion.
  
• The volume of hits from low calibre rounds (20-37mm) around the listener has been significantly decreased. Such sounds might previously have been identified as machine gun fire or just crackling.

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The current provided changelog reflects the major changes within the game as part of this Update. Some updates, additions and fixes may not be listed in the provided notes. War Thunder is constantly improving and specific fixes may be implemented without the client being updated.

In this digest we would like to tell you about our continuing work on improvements and fixes in the game. You can find information about all updates that have been released in War Thunder on the website special section.



The shell in any type of weapon in our game appears in the breech part of the barrel and from there will be directed towards the enemy. This mechanism allows you to make the mechanics of shooting realistic and is designed to prevent the shell from hitting the enemy through impenetrable obstacles.

In some cases and with some vehicles, this rule failed and the enemy who was close enough to a thin wall in the appropriate vehicle might shoot through that wall. Thanks to your bug reports we found such vehicles and fixed this issue.



This bug affected many game vehicles. For the spectator, the enemy rotating their commander’s periscope was displayed as the entire turret rotating. A pretty critical bug close attention was given to it, now it is fixed.



One of the cool War Thunder features is the realistic shell models that “learned” in one of the last updates to get stuck in armour in case of non penetration. This mechanic worked so honestly that the shell might be stuck in the barrel but still appear to be hanging in the air in your sight.

To reconcile the game’s conventions and the desire for authenticity we eliminated the display of stuck shells when viewing through a gunner’s sight.

• ADATS (M113) — armouring on the external fuel tanks has been increased from 12.7 to 44 mm.
  
• ASRAD-R — armouring on the external fuel tanks has been increased from 12.7 to 44 mm.
  
• SIDAM-25, SIDAM-25 (Mistral) — armouring on the external fuel tanks has been increased from 6 to 44 mm.
  
• CM25 — armouring on the external fuel tanks has been increased from 4 to 44 mm.
  
• ASU-85 — IR spotlight has been fixed.
  
• BMP-3 — a bug has been fixed where the “Sodema” sight was displayed on the model without researching the corresponding modification.
  
• Challenger 2, Challenger 2 (2F), Challenger 2 TES — description of the internal bulkheads has been corrected.
  
• Challenger 2 TES — description of the external armour blocks in x-ray mode has been corrected.
  
• A bug has been fixed where a rotation of the commander’s periscope might be displayed as turret rotation when observed by other players.
  
• When open-top vehicles are destroyed by fire, the crew members are no longer displayed in their seats.
  
• A bug has been fixed where, when observed in a tank sight, a shell might be displayed in a splayed tank muzzle. 
  
• A bug has been fixed where it was possible to shoot through obstacles when a tank gun barrel passed through them.

• AU-1 — weapon icons have been corrected in the secondary weapons menu.
  
• AJ37 — icon of the RB 75 missile has been corrected.
  
• Wyvern S.4 — a bug has been fixed that prevented separate rocket launches for the “Rp-3 x16 + torpedo” setup.
  
• EC-665 Tiger HAD — a bug has been fixed where rockets were not displayed in the left pod of the "HOT-3 x4, SNEB type 23 x12" setup.
  
• Fw 190 A-5 (all versions) — guns have been divided into control groups “low calibre”, “high calibre”, and “suspended”.
  
• F-4J — weapon setups have been divided into groups.

• SMS Helgoland, SMS Westfallen, HMS Dreadnought, Imperatritsa Mariya, Poltava, Parizhskaya Kommuna — armour data has been corrected in the info cards.
  
• PT-200 — 20mm ammo belt select option has been fixed .
  
• Moskva, Leningrad — horizontal targeting angles on the main calibre guns have been increased

The current provided changelog reflects the major changes within the game as part of this Update. Some updates, additions and fixes may not be listed in the provided notes. War Thunder is constantly improving and specific fixes may be implemented without the client being updated.

Developed at the dawn of WWII, the B-26 Marauder was an iconic American medium bomber that recorded an illustrious service career with Allied forces right up until the end of the war. Soon, pilots may look forward to getting the chance to take control of this much anticipated American bomber as it arrives to War Thunder as part of the next major update!

• High speed
  
• Heavily armed
  
• Resilient against battle damage
  
• Vulnerable lower hemisphere

In War Thunder, the highly anticipated B-26 Marauder is arriving to the mid ranks of the American aviation tree as part of the upcoming major update. Fans of the B-26 Marauder will only have to wait a little while longer before they’re able to take to the skies behind the controls of not just one, but two variants of this iconic American medium bomber! In this devblog, we’d like to give you a first look at the B-26B and B-26C Marauder, arriving soon to the battlefields of War Thunder. Let’s begin!

Being conceived from the very beginning for speed, the B-26 Marauder is outfitted with a pair of Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Twin Wasp radial engines, producing a peak power output of 2,000 horsepower on take-off. Thus, the aircraft is able to attain a maximum speed of 264 mph (425 km/h) at medium altitudes. Consequently, the B-26 will be everything but a sitting duck to hostile fighters and will often require enemy pilots to attack from above in order to catch up to it. 


While fast indeed, the Marauder isn’t fast enough to outrun every pursuer in the skies. Inevitably, some fighters will catch up to it and for this occasion, the B-26 is equipped with just the right tools: defensive .50 calibre machine guns, and plenty of them at that! Namely, the Marauder is equipped with up to seven 12.7 mm heavy machine guns, covering the aircraft’s front, rear and upper hemisphere. Only the lower hemisphere is less well protected and this gap in the aircraft’s protective sphere is a weak point which bold fighter pilots can take advantage of in order to launch an attack run.



However, the Marauder’s arsenal doesn’t just stop at its defensive turrets - it’s a bomber aircraft after all. Apart from the defensive turrets, the B-26 is also fitted with a further five .50 cal machine guns, fixed in position in the aircraft’s nose section. This allows the Marauder to perform strafing attacks on soft ground targets or even actively engage other hostile aircraft. But the Marauder’s core arsenal really lies within its payload, and rest assured, it’s quite a sizable one! Being able to carry a payload in excess of 4,000 lbs, the B-26 can be loaded with bombs of various calibers, ranging from 100 to 2,000 lbs and as a result, the types of targets the Marauder can take on with these bombs is just as diverse.

The highly anticipated B-26B and B-26C Marauder will soon take to the skies in War Thunder as they arrive to the game as part of the next major update. In the meantime, make sure to stay tuned to the news as we continue revealing which other exciting new additions and features await you in the upcoming update. Until then, clear skies pilots!