Today Gaijin Entertainment showcased the visual enhancements coming to War Thunder with the upcoming Firebirds Update.
We start with taking a look at Ray Tracing, which will include Ray Traced Shadow Maps, Ray Traced Ambient Occlusion, and Ray Traced Reflections. All will be separate optional toggles and for the moment will work only on PCs with Nvidia cards, while implementing it on AMD and Intel cards remains a priority for the future, alongside current-gen consoles.
To be completely honest, all that reflective glass is nice, but it’s absolutely out of place in a warzone.
Naval battles will be enriched by debris and wreckage generated by sunken ships. Airfield models have been revamped with new models and textures, on top of puddles on runways during wain.
Jet aircraft will get new vortices and revamped afterburner effects, while missiles will get fancier explosions.
The Abandoned Factory map has been completely overhauled. All ground maps will have more puddles, and vehicles traveling through water and mud will get dirty in a more visible and realistic way.
A new deformation system for environmental objects lets you properly squish cars under your main battle tank’s tracks.
Dirt and dust picked up by tires are much more visible, and the weather has been overhauled as well.
You can see everything in action below.
War Thunder is currently available for PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, and Xbox One. The Firebirds update is coming this month, bringing new aircraft and more improvements.
If you’re unfamiliar with War Thunder, it’s an online battle game/light simulator that lets players enjoy aircraft, tanks and ground vehicles, and ships. It’s free-to-play, but of course, it comes with its full dose of microtransactions for those who want to partake.
