Today, Gaijin Entertainment revealed new information for the next update for its hit free-to-play vehicular combat title, War Thunder Ninth Wave.
War Thunder Ninth Wave is the latest main update for the title, with a major focus of it revolving around reworking water and naval battle effects across the board. The core of the update will transition from the simple shader-based ripples currently used for water physics to a mathematically synchronized water model calculated on the CPU, ensuring all players in a multiplayer session see identical wave behavior.
A new rendering technique known as Subsurface Scattering will even calculate how light interacts with objects below the surface, providing a sense of interior volume and depth. On the surface of the waves, reflections now change dynamically with viewing angle and sea conditions, improving visual clarity even at sharp angles while working in tandem with the Dynamic Foam System, which is now generated based on vortex physics and wave resonance to create 3D-looking highlights when waves collide with hulls or obstacles.
War Thunder Ninth Wave will improve nearly every visual interaction between weaponry and the sea, from newly animated height maps to explosion pillars. Individual shell casings that fall overboard can even be seen interacting accurately with the water surface, where players will also notice more authentic torpedo movement features, as they make foamy wakes and have received new mini-map markers to help players track their course more effectively.
Weather presets have been refined to be more dramatic, allowing players to clearly distinguish between clear skies, dense cloud cover, and the heavy gloom of an approaching storm. Alongside these new effects, the update will introduce new vehicles such as the USS Oklahoma (BB-37) and the Centauro II (P).
War Thunder is currently available on PC (Steam), PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, and Xbox One as a free-to-play title, though add-ons are available for an extra cost.
