War Thunder’s Firebirds update is huge, even by War Thunder standards. Additional vehicles will dominate the land, sea, and sky, some of which come with sneaky new abilities. Portable ammunition boxes will shake up how you reload in the heat of battle, and new mechanics will help you perfect your tactics. Plus, thanks to new ray tracing capabilities and some significant visual overhauls, you get to test these new toys in.
The changes that developer Gaijin made are so numerous that it takes a long, long Firebirds changelog to recount every detail. For the time-strapped and newly curious, here’s a handy highlights reel. We’ll explain why these changes make 2024 an excellent year to download the free-to-play War Thunder.
Leading the charge for new vehicle options is the F-117A Nighthawk, an American squadron vehicle that debuts unique stealth mechanics. The F-117A has such a small IR and radar signature that it’s difficult for anti-aircraft vehicles to spot it until it’s too late.
New vehicles
Such subterfuge isn’t without risks. The vehicle isn’t entirely invisible, is a challenge to control, and it carries just two bombs. It’s unremarkable in any situation other than a sneak attack from above – but that new tactic is a tantalizing one.
As for other aircraft, the British helicopter tree also introduces the South African Super Hind, a specialized version of the Mi-24 that’s able to defend itself from air attacks while assaulting ground vehicles with laser accuracy. Russia, the USA, and Israel also have some modern planes to test.
The Su-34 is the very top of the Russian strike aircraft tree, and its varied arsenal of missiles and air-to-surface weapons make it one of War Thunder’s most advanced attack aircraft. The US and Israel can both access the F-15E Strike Eagle, a top-rank strike fighter with a payload capacity, weapon options, and ground targets radar that will make land-based forces tremble.
Lovers of light vehicles will also find they have new options to explore. Brits may recognize their ground force tree’s next addition, the iconic FV107 Scimitar. It boasts a top speed of 80km per hour and a 30mm L21A1 automatic cannon.
Germany’s latest light vehicle is the Luchs A2, which makes up for its limited armor with incredible mobility. It can zip along roads at a speed of 90km per hour, and it reaches a respectable 50km off-road. For further flexibility, it can traverse water at a speed of 10km per hour. This speedy tank works best when it ducks and weaves into close range, targets a vulnerable flank, then swiftly gets out of dodge.
On the heavier side of things, China now has access to the rank-V PLZ05. This beefy tank destroyer comes equipped with a long-barreled 155mm Howitzer that’ll blow the enemy away with its high explosive rounds. A mechanized ammunition rack and a surprising level of speed make this a tank that hits often and hard.
The star of the seas in this update is Dunkerque, a battleship that’s now at the top of the French Bluewater fleet tree. It stands out from other warships thanks to its unique weaponry layout, where the primary guns are all geared to fire on a single target from the bow, while the secondary cannons are spread out to deal with smaller attackers.
As promised in War Thunder’s roadmap, a select number of vehicle types can now deploy ammunition boxes in ground battles. These take some time to set up, but once constructed, they’ll allow you to replenish some ammo from a drive-by point anywhere on the map.
When a box runs out of ammo – or takes too much damage from an attacker – it’s destroyed. You can always rebuild the box, but this doesn’t replenish the ammo pool – only unused shells will still be inside. This can be particularly devastating if an opponent trashes your box while ammo remains, as it can ignite and cause a dangerous, ammo-devouring fire.
Test flights and shot replays
Test flights were overhauled for the Firebirds update. You now have the option to spawn in the air, between 500m and 7km above the airfield for planes and up to 2km for helicopters. You can further customize the location type and rank of enemy targets, with even more opportunities to test your defenses against a hostile computer foe.
If you want to up your skills even further, the brand-new shot replays feature can simulate direct hits you took or dealt in the previous battle. Hit Analysis can show you the exact projectile that took out your tank, the point and angle of impact, and the range it was fired from. This is clearly presented with a helpful animation – which makes learning your vehicle’s weaknesses easy.
Graphical update
With the Firebirds update comes new support for ray tracing, with all the shiny benefits that brings. Nearly everything on the battlefield is accessible for ray tracing effects at high fidelity, so you’ll get accurate, ambient shadows and reflections wherever you go. Every mirror and puddle is now ultra-glossy, and each shadow is as dark as the environment’s lighting would dictate in real life. With multiple ways to enable or disable ray tracing, you can choose a setting that suits your PC’s performance.
Aircraft users will find War Thunder is now even more of a smooth ride – visually, that is. Airfields have a mass of new details, from extra buildings to skid marks on the runway. Several planes and helicopters have upgraded cockpits, with realistic details added to increase the immersion of first-person flight. Things look pretty accurate in third person too, where afterburner flame, LERX vapor, and rocket booster effects have been added.
And War Thunder hasn’t forgotten about its other vehicles – ground vehicles grow visibly dirtier based on the terrain they traverse, and you’ll spot visible debris from sinking ships in the water during naval combat. There’s also a new, optional motion blur feature with an adjustable intensity level.
Perhaps the biggest single visual update is to the classic Abandoned Factory map. This has been given a complete makeover, so it looks even more overgrown and uninhabited than ever before.
These are just a few of the significant changes that the Firebird update brings to War Thunder. We’ve not even scratched the surface of the bug fixes, vehicle updates, interface changes, and graphics tweaks the update offers. If you’re even more curious now, you can see the full changelog on the official War Thunder website. Or you can jump into the free-to-play game and take these features for a test spin yourself.