Gaijin Entertainment is pleased to announce the release of major Content Update “Northern Wind” for the online military action game War Thunder. It marks the arrival of a new Swedish aviation tech tree, the first two Swedish ground vehicles and a Scandinavian-themed naval battle map. As usual, the update also brings dozens of new vehicles for all nations, like the Rooikat Mk.1D, first South African ground vehicle and the German Admiral Graf Spee heavy cruiser. The visuals for War Thunder are now more realistic due to the new Ray Traced Global Illumination system, physically correct spark simulation, as well as HDR technology support.
The proprietary Ray Traced Global Illumination system was unveiled by Gaijin Entertainment at the NVIDIA GeForce RTX Launch Event at Gamescom 2018. It provides scalable real-time global Illumination for large scenes and has already been implemented in Cuisine Royale, another online game by Gaijin Entertainment. The “Northern Wind” update brings this technology to War Thunder on PC (when using the NVIDIA GeForce RTX or in medium quality on any DirectX 11 videocard) and Xbox One. Ray Traced Global Illumination ensures that the in-game lighting is realistic, immersive, natural in appearance while making sure that it suits the time of day and weather on the battle map. This system reacts to game events like explosions and the destruction of objects making sure the shading is correct in real time without any major compromise to performance for players. Xbox One and PC users also get the HDR technology support to provide brighter highlights and a wider range of color detail.
Sweden is one of the few countries in the world that is developing and producing modern military vehicles on par with the arsenal of global powers. The aviation tree for Sweden in War Thunder begins with the simple pre-war J6B Jaktfalken II (“gyrfalcon”) biplane fighter from Svenska Aero AB ending with powerful fighter jets like the J32B Lansen made by Saab in the 1950s. Two Swedish ground vehicles introduced in the Update – the turretless Strv 103 main battle tank and experimental SAV 20.12.48 Swedish SPG – serve as a glimpse into the future for the Swedish ground vehicle line-up that will arrive in upcoming major updates.
As you may have noticed, War Thunder is gradually introducing larger and larger ships, so the new Admiral Graf Spee heavy cruiser, also known as “a pocket battleship” due to a pair of powerful triple 283mm (11’’) turrets, is a logical step towards battlecruisers that will arrive in future updates.
A full list of updates brought by the “Northern Wind” is available at the official War Thunder website: http://www.warthunder.com
About War Thunder
War Thunder is a free-to-play, cross-platform, massively multiplayer military masterpiece with millions of fans worldwide, that allows players to fight their way across air, land, and sea in the same battlefield. War Thunder offers 1,000+ playable aircraft, armored vehicles and ships from the early 1930s to the Cold War, including ground vehicles from the 1960s and 1970s that feature technologies typical for modern tank construction. The US, Soviet, British, German, Italian, Japanese, and French military vehicles represented in game are carefully researched, historically accurate recreations of their real world counterparts. Fans can expect hundreds more added as Gaijin Entertainment commits to ongoing development via regular updates. Official website: http://warthunder.com
