The free-to-play game will receive plenty of improvements and new elements soon

Aug 23, 2014 00:35 GMT  ·  By

At Gamescom 2014, independent developer Gaijin Entertainment brought forth quite a few different things, from a presentation about its future plans for War Thunder, the popular free-to-play online war game, to an Oculus Rift virtual reality build of that same game.

First up, Gaijin details the many different things that will appear in the following updates for War Thunder. These include, of course, plenty of new planes for all the major factions present in World War 2. Many jets made by Japan or the other Axis powers will be present and target high-level players who know how to pilot them successfully.

Seeing as how massive air and land battles are becoming quite frequent in War Thunder, special vehicles like tanks and anti-air guns will be added in the upcoming update. By far the most intriguing is the T55, which boasts multiple turrets that can be fired in different directions or concentrated on a single target.

Two new maps are also set to appear, taking place in Norway and Poland. The special Polish map is the first urban level seen in War Thunder and should deliver a breath of fresh air for players who were getting tired of rural settings. Gaijin went to great lengths to make the map as realistic as possible and even used old war photos.

Another major feature that should see the light of day rather soon is a fresh User Generated Content system in which players can design their own camouflages and liveries for planes to use. These can be uploaded on the community website and the most popular ones will be analyzed by Gaijin, improved in certain ways, and then sold as premium skins. The original creators will get a cut of the profit via the revenue share system.

New systems designed to show the efficiency of tank armor, as well as a killcam mechanic to show just how much damage a round made inside a tank, are also going to be added to War Thunder to up the realism factor.

In terms of plans for future updates, Gaijin wants to bring forth a realistic destruction system. The mechanic is still in an alpha stage, but a quite polished gameplay demonstration showed it proving really useful in the upcoming Polish map, as players were able to destroy parts of a building to gain sight into the area behind it.

The Oculus Rift demonstration was a bit short, but quite impressive. A special flight joystick was also on hand, so the whole experience was pretty realistic, despite its still being an alpha version. Gaijin plans on further improving the game for virtual reality and it also wants to ensure support for Sony's upcoming Project Morpheus on the PS4.