WAR THUNDER

War Thunder is a massively multiplayer onlinecombat flight simulator currently being developed by Gaijin Entertainment for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and the PlayStation 4. It is currently in the open beta testing phase.

Gameplay

The game is set to contain aircraft, armored vehicles, and ships from the pre-World War II era to the early Korean War era. Most maps in-game are either directly or indirectly based on real-life battles of the era.
The average size of maps in the game currently range from approximately 65 km x 65 km to 100 km x 100 km to 200 km x 200 km, although the engine powering the game is likely to achieve larger map sizes in the future, estimates are said to be about 300 km x 300 km.




Arcade battles

In the arcade battles game draws two teams of players (up to 32 people) with planes of different nations with close levels. It is thus possible war machines of the same type in different teams. Damage and physics games are greatly simplified (e.g. in very high speed dives, planes do not have their wings ripped off and are still controllable), but retain some realism (e.g. bombers are not as maneuverable as fighters, etc.). The Arcade Mode games are played in either "Ground Strike," where in order to win you must destroy all enemy ground units or "Domination", which consists of seizing enemy airfields, causing the enemy team to lose points.


Historical battles

Historical battle mode is designed for more advanced users. More realistic damage models makes long-range "sniping" difficult, and due to realistic g-forces, making tight maneuvers at high speeds can cause pilots to black out or their planes to rip apart. In this mode, unlike the arcade game, players are selected for each team nations, making it possible to recreate a real scenario, such as the Battle of Stalingrad between the Soviet Union and the Third Reich.


Full real battles

This mode is based on the most realistic simulation settings; only the first-person view in the cockpit or turret gunner views are allowed, and flight physics are at their most realistic settings, accurately reflecting the attributes of the airframe. The story mode is similar to the historical battles - two teams of different nations are fighting each other for dominance in the sky, but the realism of the game at this level is even higher.


Development

The development of the game as World of Planes began in 2009. Gaijin Entertainment used its experience with its previous flight games such as IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey, Apache: Air Assault, and Birds of Steel in its development. The name was later changed to War Thunder due to confusion with the similar competitor World of Warplanes, as well as other reasons due to Gaijin, the developers of War Thunder, wanting the game to not just be focused on aviation anymore.


Timeline

• April 1, 2011 – The World of Planes project is announced. Some game and broadcast media took this announcement as an April Fool's joke, but the news was true: Gaijin Entertainment confirmed the development of World of Planes, a multiplayer simulation of military equipment (ships, tanks and aircraft).
• June 6, 2011 – Applications open for the closed alpha test of World of Planes* June 17, 2011 – The official website of the project is launched.
• August 25, 2011 – The first official trailer for the game was published on YouTube – the video of DirectX9 benchmark alpha version of the game. The video shows the actual gameplay of early versions of the game, the American and Japanese fighters and bombers, and the Navy, including aircraft carriers.
• September 6, 2011 – A new trailer is made available, showing recordings of gameplay in the alpha version of the game. New video shows the Kuban air battles between the Soviet and German aircraft, tank and other combat vehicles, as well as aircraft strafing ground targets.
• October 6–9, 2011 – World of Planes is shown at IGROMIR 2011. All guests were given the opportunity to play in the alpha version of the project at the stand. In early October, the closed alpha test was launched. Virtual pilots from Russia, CIS countries, from Europe and North America took part in testing. Gameplay videos shot in the alpha version of some of the testers were allowed to be published by the developer.
• October 10, 2011 – New trailer published. The video shows ground battles, ground attack, and ground and sea targets in the Battle of Britain, the USSR, and in the Pacific theater of operations. First fighter jets, F-86 and MiG-15, were shown.
• December 24, 2011 – The developers announced the beginning of the World of Planes project – first quarter 2012.
• January 9, 2012 – Edition of the popular British game magazine PC Gamer includes World of Planes in its list of the "Best Games of 2012", in the category of the MMO.
• January 24, 2012 – Game publisher and developer Gaijin Entertainment announced a change of name of the project to 'War Thunder' due to the fact that in future the game world will be expanded beyond the flight simulator to make it possible to manage land and marine equipment in one battle. On the same day, the official website was revamped.
• March 30, 2012 – Closed beta test for War Thunder begins.
• August 10, 2012 – The game enters a new phase – an invitation-only global beta.
• November 1, 2012 – Open beta test of the game begins.
• March 5, 2013 - War Thunder reaches one million players.
• March 19, 2013 - War thunder released update 1.29. This update introduced customizable ammunition belts, a new economy system, a new interface, an updated damage model, new planes (B-25 Mitchell, G5N and G8N, Tu-2's, Do-217 and the Gloster Meteor Mk. 8) and numerous other bug fixes.
• March 21, 2013 - War Thunder's US cluster is released.
• April 1, 2013 - War Thunder had a one-day event for April Fools in which players could fly around "little ponies", this was a reference to the large Internet fandom of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic; however, this was later removed for obvious purposes.
• April 11, 2013 - All 5 playable nations are now available in historical battles.
• April 19, 2013 - Added voice chat in squads.
• May 14, 2013 - It was announced by Gaijin (the developers of War Thunder) that the game will eventually be released on the Sony PlayStation 4 "in time for the holiday 2013 season". On the same day, Gaijin released the first teaser trailer for the upcoming ground forces.
• June 11, 2013 - Gaijin release the 1.31 Update for War Thunder adding in lots of new features such as Enhanced graphics and more.
• July 19, 2013 - War Thunder reach 3 records: one billion units destroyed, over 600,000,000 sorties flown, over 30,000,000 hours flown in War Thunder.
• July 24, 2013 - Leaderboard and Player's Profiles are now available on the War Thunder Official Website.
• July 25, 2013 - War Thunder reaches 3 million players.
• August 7, 2013 - Gaijin release the 1.33 Update for War Thunder adding in lots of new features such as new modification system and more.
• August 15, 2013 - Gaijin War Thunder releases in the Steam service with multiple discounts in Steam Store.
• August 20, 2013 - War Thunder officially announced as a launch title for the PlayStation 4.