War Thunder’s Eagle’s Shadow Update Will Add Snow Melt and New Sky Effects
The rendering changes also bring weather-sensitive aircraft vapor, reflected lights on water, and more natural-looking clouds.
War Thunder’s upcoming Eagle’s Shadow update will change how snow and mud build up on tanks, how vapor forms around aircraft, and how lights appear on water. Gaijin outlined the rendering work in its Steam rendering preview.
Separate Eagle’s Shadow features will also alter weapon flashes, tracer smoke and vehicle effects, extending the update’s visual work beyond these rendering changes.
Tank coatings will follow armor details
Snow, dust and mud will respond more closely to each vehicle’s surfaces. Snow will gather in solid, textured patches instead of appearing as a pale film, while dust will look grainy and mud will have a bumpy surface. Rivets, welds, hatch rims and gaps will affect where coatings collect, with more buildup in crevices and shaded spots. Grain size will also be more consistent across vehicles.
Light dust will travel farther and settle higher on the hull, while heavier mud will stay near the tracks. Snow will gradually melt from engine decks, radiator grilles and exhaust pipes while the engine runs, and firing the main gun will clear snow from its heated barrel. The more costly processing will happen when a map loads, and the updated system will remain available on the graphics presets that already supported it.
Aircraft vapor will respond to weather
Humidity data added to each weather preset will join speed, altitude and angle of attack in determining flight vapor. It will be barely visible in dry, clear conditions, but up to three times stronger under low clouds or over the sea. New wing vapor sheets will appear at critical angles of attack, grow with speed and G-forces, and thin out toward the wing’s trailing edge. They will fade at high altitude, where the air is drier and colder. On variable-sweep aircraft, the sheets and vortices will follow the wings as they change position.
Ship lights will reflect on the water
Water will reflect more than sunlight. Muzzle flashes, fires and lamps will shimmer across waves, while light at night will also spread below the surface and illuminate the water. Those reflections may help reveal a burning ship before its hull is clear. The new glints and glow will require High or Ultra water quality settings. Medium and Low settings will keep the previous rendering.
High-altitude skies will lose banding and repeated clouds
The updated renderer will smooth out fog and haze at different altitudes and distances, removing the dark bands that could appear in distant skies. It will also sharpen the horizon, restore haze over the sea at high altitude, and bring back the sunbeams that pass through clouds.
Cloud formations will also stop repeating in a wallpaper-like pattern. Each patch of sky will use a cloud shape with its own random position and rotation, blended into neighboring formations. Gaijin says the change will work across graphics settings and platforms without requiring extra system resources.
Which part of the rendering pass do you think will be easiest to notice in a match? For more on Eagle’s Shadow’s visual changes, stay connected through X, Bluesky, YouTube, Instagram, Steam, and Telegram.
War Thunder
Developed by Gaijin Entertainment
War Thunder is a free-to-play vehicular combat MMO featuring aircraft, ground vehicles, and naval craft spanning from the early 20th century to the modern era. Players progress through technology trees across multiple nations, unlocking increasingly advanced military vehicles. The game offers three realism tiers for each vehicle type: arcade, realistic, and simulator modes. Originally developed as a flight simulator under the name "World of Planes," the game expanded to include tanks in 2014 and naval forces later, becoming a combined-arms experience. A mobile version was released in 2023.
- Genre Shooter, Simulator, Tactical
- Platforms Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, Linux, PC (Microsoft Windows), PlayStation 5, Mac, Xbox One
- Perspective First person, Third person, Virtual Reality
- Modes Single player, Multiplayer, Co-operative, Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO)
- Release January 28, 2013
- Publisher Gaijin Entertainment
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