War Thunder Interview – The Evolution Continues Even After A Decade

Vyacheslav Bulannikov: We usually do not announce features or content that much in advance because of our approach to game development. We constantly try out new ideas and experiment with features internally first and announce them only when they’re almost ready and we see that they might really make the game better. This helps to avoid giving false promises.

This does not stop our players from making good educated guesses. Obviously, War Thunder is destined to get more real-world military vehicles and whole new tech trees; it’s only a question of timing. New vehicles would allow us to simulate new military technologies, including the most advanced ones (a good example is the stealth tech that we brought in the latest update). So you can explore the list of all existing military hardware that is not yet a part of War Thunder and try to guess what will be coming next.

Vyacheslav Bulannikov: We’ve reworked our moderation system to make sure that we’ll delete all documents like this as fast as possible. We’ve also alerted our players again and again that these leaks are both illegal and pointless, as we’ll never do anything based on files like this. We won’t even look at them.

Vyacheslav Bulannikov: No, there won’t be any sci-fi in core War Thunder modes. We still have literally thousands of realistic military vehicles and other military hardware to add to War Thunder, and that’s how we’re going to expand the game. We had some time-limited special events with sci-fi tech, though, and even more are planned. This approach allows us to create fun new experiences without compromising the core game spirit.

Vyacheslav Bulannikov: We’ve answered this question many times, as obviously, some vehicles could be more efficient on the battlefields with infantry present. Speaking hypothetically, adding infantry would require a lot of changes to the game. We’ll have to introduce completely new missions, new maps, and new gameplay (i.e., a new approach to repairing the damaged vehicles in the field and how the capture points work)… S,o for now War Thunder is a vehicular combat game only. Those who would like to try a realistic military action game involving tanks, aircraft, and infantry on the same battlefield are welcome to download Enlisted, which we have also published.

Vyacheslav Bulannikov: Our game gradually grows bigger and bigger, with dozens of new vehicles being added with each update. So, the overall amount of grinding required to unlock all content will grow as well. We tackle this by periodically revising the amount of research points needed to unlock the vehicles to make sure that the overall grinding stays more or less the same.

Last year, we were late with this revision process, as well as with revising other game elements that needed changes after we added so many new vehicles and gameplay mechanics lately. That’s why we got a lot of complaints from the players. We gathered a lot of feedback, studied it, and created a special roadmap addressing the issues brought to us by the players, including the progression speed. For example, we changed the tech trees structure, allowing the players to skip some vehicles, reduced the research point cost of the most advanced aircraft, provided more research point bonuses, etc.

We’ve also made a lot of internal changes in our community department that are targeted at improving our communication with the players.

Vyacheslav Bulannikov: Stealth does not make an aircraft invincible, and real-world engagements have proved that already. F-117 has a significantly smaller IR and radar signature compared to other bombers of that size, but at close distances, it’s still possible to lock into it.

Vyacheslav Bulannikov: There is no sense in dropping the existing user base with all the in-game they unlocked and making the players download War Thunder 2 and start from scratch. War Thunder is constantly evolving, and we plan to continue this approach as long as our players stay with us.

Vyacheslav Bulannikov: There is no sense to release a sequel to a service that works. That’s why Apple has not released App Store 2.0, and Netflix has not released Netflix 2.0. Companies continuously work on making their service better instead. They add new hardware support and release updates that add new features but continue to support existing core experience.

A “2.0” release for a service is usually a reboot, and rebooting means that the company is trying to get lapsed users back or attract a completely new audience. This decision could be interpreted as an indirect acknowledgment of the fact that the old service was a failure and/or won’t be supported anymore. It’s obviously not a good idea when the service is loved and supported by the existing fans.

A “service sequel” even sounds dubious.

Vyacheslav Bulannikov: We’re still working on some of the improvements, but we already added the opportunity to play the game at 4K@120FPS.

Vyacheslav Bulannikov: During development and playtesting, we found PSSR to be on par with DLSS and XeSS. These technologies are constantly improving, so I find it impressive that the first version of PSSR is already head-to-head with other, more mature solutions.

Vyacheslav Bulannikov: We have a separate team of engineers from the Dagor Engine team responsible for the task, so it does not draw resources from the core War Thunder team that is working on our core content updates. We usually love to be among the first in the world to implement the latest technologies or support new platforms, as it improves player satisfaction, generates more visibility for the game and gives us more experience in working with the new technologies that we can use when creating new games.

Vyacheslav Bulannikov: We do not have anything to announce at the moment, but we’re always eager to support new hardware and bring War Thunder experience to new platforms.

Vyacheslav Bulannikov: Free-to-play made huge content-rich and widely popular titles like War Thunder possible. The majority of our players do not pay anything but still enjoy the game and are an important part of our community. Obviously, not every game works well as a free-to-play game-as-as-service. Moreover, there is no unified “free-to-play” model that is used similarly by all the games on the market: Counter-Strike, Fortnite, Genshin Impact, League of Legends, and Raid: Shadow Legends are all using very different approaches and have their own reasons for that. So, it’s not a good idea to generalize.

Battle Passes is a good system that allows both paying and non-paying users to get new content regularly by playing the game. Obviously, each online game has to secure a predictable source of steady revenue to support its continued development. Battle Passes usually work well and are well received by the players of free-to-play games.