Company Gaijin Entertainment announced the start of development of a version of the military MMO action game War Thunder for Xbox One and Xbox One X. Details about the features and the release date of the game on these consoles have not yet been announced. It's worth noting that on Xbox One X War Thunder will work in 4K resolution.

“Fans of military history games have been asking us if War Thunder will be coming to Xbox One, and we are pleased to announce that we have reached an agreement with Microsoft to bring the game to Xbox One and Xbox One X,” says Anton Yudintsev, CEO of Gaijin Entertainment. “More than 20 million players have already experienced the thrilling battles of War Thunder on PC, PlayStation 4, Mac and Linux, and we can’t wait for Xbox One and Xbox One X owners to join them.”

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My passion for flight simulators began twenty years ago with the game F-19 Stealth Fighte r , which my brother got for our ZX Spectrum. Then there wereMicrosoft Combat Flight Simulator , Jane's Attack Squadron , « IL-2: Sturmovik" And LockOn, timid attempts to get comfortable in the peaceful sky MSFS and much more.

There were hour-long flights and high-altitude battles reminiscent of a chess game, the need to cram algorithms for the operation of the propeller pitch, control the radiator dampers and monitor the engine speed... But the frantic pilot routine was redeemed by a fun maneuverable battle near the ground - it is called a dog fight, a “dog dump” , - when dozens of planes rush back and forth, tearing up the sky every second with sparkling stitches of tracers.

Unfortunately, it was difficult to find such fun online. The great and terrible IL-2 died of old age, unable to give birth to a worthy heir, and he himself, admittedly, was too hardcore. And when it seemed that there was no hope left, thunder struck...

Sat down and flew

On November 1, an open beta test of the Russian session game, formerly known as World of Planes, started. The game is considered the main competitor World of Warplanes, but is developing in a slightly different direction: the developers plan to add ground equipment and ships to the aircraft in one game, and not in three different ones. However, only airplanes are available for now. Let's talk about them.

Even those who have not played simulators before will be ready to go into battle after a short introductory flight. A joystick is useful, but not required. It can be used to perform more complex maneuvers, but in terms of shooting accuracy, the mouse is unrivaled. And in battle, this, you understand, is by no means superfluous.

As you progress in multiplayer, you can unlock a lot of interesting single missions: night raids on airfields, interception of bombers, air defense attacks...

War Thunder is mostly based on PvP, but for those who like to shoot at bots there are single missions, as well as the system of “static” (manually created) and “dynamic” (automatically generated) campaigns familiar from “IL-2: Sturmovik”. You can go through them either in splendid isolation or with friends. Campaigns from developers are not bad, but they are not free. For 360 rubles, the player receives a campaign, game currency and a premium account, which in themselves cover this amount, and in addition - a high-level aircraft. With such “bonuses”, the missions themselves begin to look like a bonus.

The main thing is to follow the regime

Among the offline tasks there are also quite peaceful ones: for example, an original test - to land the “Seagull” on a narrow and short breakwater.	The mission editor allows you to quickly create a battle with a couple of dozen bots and shoot to your heart's content.

War Thunder has three modes: arcade, historical And realistic battles. In the "arcade" planes do not collapse upon reaching critical speed, do not fall into a tailspin, do not overheat, and have more powerful engines. The battle begins in the air; Each pilot has a substantial supply of cars - on average, five to seven pieces.

In historical battles, the start takes place at the airfield. The flight model becomes noticeably more complicated, ammo and fuel are not endless, and each side is equipped with vehicles of only one nation - if we play as the Germans, access to Soviet pilots is prohibited. In realistic mode, mouse control is prohibited and you cannot use a third-person view (cockpit only), and only allies are marked with markers, and then almost point-blank.

The density of fire in arcade mode sometimes goes off scale. Tracers are everywhere, step left, step right - and they will shoot you, and not necessarily enemies.	In battle there is no time to be distracted by beauty. Even these!

In addition to realism settings, there is a choice of victory conditions: in the first mode you need to destroy all ground equipment and ships, in the second mode you need to occupy airfields. Both are still raw. A light-hearted dogfight would be very appropriate here, but for some reason the players are persistently forced to hunt for ground targets. Or land on airfields for capture, which in the midst of an air battle is often tantamount to suicide.

More often than not, the side that wins is not the side whose pilots are the best at shooting down enemy planes, but the side with the most conscientious people willing to sacrifice their own fun for the sake of a common victory. Formally, the destruction of all aircraft also leads to victory, but given the large stock of aircraft each pilot has, this is very difficult to do.

Eight guns and the whole sky in airplanes

A typical fight in arcade mode. Something is shooting somewhere, something is exploding somewhere.	Explosion further away - a plane that tried to shoot down a P-40 on landing, but instead came under fire itself. A closer explosion - another shot down.

There are already three hundred aircraft models in War Thunder, and in the future they plan to increase their number to five hundred. Almost all cars are historically accurate; Developers use design and prototypes with great reluctance, only to plug holes in development branches.

The developers cheated a little by adding a bunch of modifications that, at first glance, differ only in paint. However, this is more of a plus than a minus - given that you can take reserve planes into battle, it’s absolutely useful to have several options for your favorite build in the hangar.

Aircraft are divided into levels, from the first to the twentieth, although the distribution among them is quite arbitrary. They have almost no armor, and bullets, shells and those parts of vehicles that make holes in battle have never heard of levels. Therefore, the simplest biplane may well shoot down (which it often does) a top-end jet monster. If he catches up, of course.

Fasten seat belts, tuck diapers

Recently, the game launched random selection of weather and time of day. Instead of a boring clear afternoon - the most beautiful sunrises, sunsets, clouds...

The War Thunder beta test is in full swing: the balance is constantly being improved, many vehicles are not yet fully configured, and some modes and maps are not included in the rotation. But all these are temporary difficulties. The main thing is to play already Interesting. This is an adrenaline-pumping Quake for fans of air shooters. And there are prospects for serious virtual pilots - a powerful hardcore lobby on the forum and among internal testers reliably defends the interests of this audience.

For us, War Thunder is a kind of joint training ground for military equipment of the 20th century. In our game, in one battle we encounter equipment from different countries and schools of design. The game allows us to simulate vehicles with a sufficient degree of realism to show our players the capabilities of these machines. And despite the deep elaboration of the implementation of all systems and components of a wide variety of equipment, control of tanks and aircraft in War Thunder remains quite accessible to players - which means that players can focus not on studying the operating manuals, but on the gameplay itself. Post-war main battle tanks (MBT) fit perfectly into our game.

What are these cars good from a gameplay point of view?

They have high mobility and powerful armor in a narrow sector, making the game more dynamic and encouraging tactical thinking. The sides of even the most modern tanks can be pierced at right angles by a T-55 or M-47 armor-piercing shell from a distance of more than two kilometers. At the same time, in the frontal projection in zones of maximum protection, MBTs of the latest generations can withstand hits from weapons with armor penetration up to 1000-1200 mm. Therefore, if you position yourself correctly in relation to the enemy, you may be slightly vulnerable, but if you let the enemy into the flank, you will be penetrated. In addition, almost all post-war MBTs were equipped with a weapon stabilizer, allowing them to fire on the move, which also has a positive effect on the dynamics of the game. Also, post-war tanks from all countries were equipped with smoke screen systems, which can give a second chance to a player who made a mistake.

The game already contains tanks from the post-war era, up to individual vehicles from the 80s (Japanese ZSU Type-87), while at the fifth rank there are vehicles whose production year differs by 30-40 years. The use of post-war machines, dividing them by rank, will make the senior levels of research branches more logical and balanced. Therefore, from the point of view of developing a player’s progress, it is logical not to limit oneself to individual tanks, but to use all vehicles that satisfy the conditions for an interesting gameplay.

Our plans

• We plan to add a new, sixth rank in the development of ground vehicles, and we will begin filling it with those vehicles that were representatives of the second post-war generation of tanks - such as the Soviet T-64, American experimental MBT-70, etc.
• We will consistently, from patch to patch, fill the new rank with interesting and well-known examples of equipment (not limited to MBTs alone) of all nations available in our game.
• The game economy was not originally designed for six ranks, so the new rank vehicles in this regard will not directly follow the previously established rules. In other words, when moving from rank 5 to rank 6, there will be no sharp increase in the cost of equipment in OG and Lions - unlike the transition, say, from rank 4 to 5. The cost of researching and purchasing equipment and modules, as well as the cost of consumables and repairs at rank 6 will differ slightly from the similar characteristics of rank 5 vehicles. Moreover, subsequently, when a sufficient number of rank 6 vehicles appear, we plan to reduce the cost of researching and purchasing vehicles at rank 5 (and possibly at lower ranks) - so that the time for players to reach top-end vehicles remains approximately the same as before entering rank 6.

Questions and answers

— Will there be Abrams/T-90/Leopard 2 and other modern vehicles?​

​Over time, we do not rule out the appearance in our game of any modern tanks from those that we can simulate with a degree of detail in appearance and combat capabilities that suits us.

— Will there be thermal imagers/night vision devices?

We’ll decide after creating prototypes and gameplay tests of night battles with similar devices.

Rank VI strike aircraft can also be represented by helicopters, which have quite interesting gameplay in joint battles. So far, the specific answer to this question and the actual list of strike aircraft have not been finalized, and not all internal tests have been carried out.

— Are there any plans to introduce modern aircraft?​

​Unlike tanks, combat on airplanes, as aviation develops, becomes more hardcore, less spectacular and reveals less and less aerobatics skills. This can be seen even in the example of the Korean War jet aircraft, which were presented in our game from the very beginning. But missiles with seekers, which do not require escort after launch, especially change the tactics of air combat. And while beyond visual range missile combat can be interesting gameplay, it is entirely focused on working with instruments and is very hardcore (since it requires special knowledge and a lot of “games in the head” without feedback from the decisions made). Therefore, making modern aviation combat interesting, accessible, non-hardcore (i.e., understandable enough to a player without special training), while at the same time maintaining the level of realism set in the game, is an extremely difficult task (if not impossible at all). Consequently, most likely the tank and aviation components of the game will diverge greatly in terms of the time period of the equipment presented.

However, we plan to first test internally the gameplay of Vietnam War-era jet aircraft, where the first guided missiles were used. These missiles had a lot of restrictions on launch conditions (angle and, most importantly, maximum and minimum distances to the target), and their maneuverability characteristics were not as high as those of modern missiles. Therefore, speaking with great caution, we can assume that over time this stage of aviation development will find its embodiment in War Thunder.

— Are there plans to change the BR of vehicles at the fifth rank with the introduction of the sixth?

Yes, most likely some of the tanks of rank V (for example, ATGM carriers) will receive a new armored vehicle, and some of the tanks already in the game may move to rank VI. Only this will not happen immediately with the release of the patch, but after some time, sufficient to collect statistics.

— Should we expect the introduction of features, such as remote control, on vehicles already in the game?

You need to understand that the presence of such protection, both passive (T-62M) and mounted remote sensing, will increase the effectiveness of the tank, so the introduction of such modifications will be made for balance reasons, with a concomitant increase in the Battle Rating.

— Should we expect the appearance of premium vehicles of rank V, since it is no longer top? What will happen to the bonuses of premium rank IV vehicles for leveling up a new top rank?​

We do not rule out the appearance of premium rank V vehicles. The reward bonus for premium rank IV vehicles when upgrading VI vehicles will work the same way as it does now when upgrading vehicles 2 or more ranks higher, i.e. with a fine.

— Rank VI tanks will appear immediately with the release of patch 1.71 or will there be a closed beta first?​

The equipment will be available for research immediately after the release of update 1.71.

— Will rank VI tanks be added for other countries?

All nations that have their own ground vehicle research tree will receive rank VI vehicles. We will add tanks from other countries to the game as soon as they are ready.