War Thunder is the flight combat MMO action game set in the Golden Age of military aviation. The game continues the armored warfare theme marked in the highly-acclaimed World of Tanks and will throw players into a never-ending tussle for air dominance.

War Thunder has launched its open beta test in Europe, North America, and South America.

“After four years of working on War Thunder, we’re sincerely happy that we can finally present it to the gaming community all over the world,” says Kirill Yudintsev, Creative Director of Gaijin Entertainment. “Every stage of the development, and every update, brings us closer to the goal we’ve established for War Thunder: a combat MMO so massive it’s sort of game that, until now, players could only dream about. With all of the new features recently added, we believe that War Thunder will exceed players’ expectations and that aerial combat fans and World War II buffs are in for a real treat.”

During the closed beta test, more than 600,000 players participated in over 60 million matches, spending millions of hours competing in thrilling and historically accurate World War II battles. Meanwhile, War Thunder received more than a thousand updates, constantly presenting new features and general improvements to make the overall gameplay experience more realistic, exciting, and convenient. As a result, new open beta participants will find War Thunder significantly improved with the latest major update (v.1.25) and upcoming 1.27, which includes:  

• Updated interface: All menus, hangar elements, planes, stats, and achievement screens were changed and upgraded with additional data to be more informative and user-friendly.
• Communication functions: General game chat was added, as well as all necessary communication functions such as private channels, friend lists, and blacklists.
• Team play: The long-awaited combat wings formations are now available. Teaming up into groups of 2 or 4 pilots, players will be able to join regular battles together and use team play tactics to bring victory to their brothers in arms.
• Realistic battles: This new third mode of War Thunder’s regular PvP battles includes cockpit view only, no markers on enemy ground targets, a simulator difficulty preset, and specifically designed levels and combat scenarios. With the priceless assistance of the open beta participants, Gaijin will continue to improve War Thunder’s realistic battles to ensure that they satisfy even the most sophisticated virtual pilots.
• New flight models: More than a hundred flight models were completely reworked and fine-tuned. Gaijin has also introduced several new aircraft in the British and German beta technical trees, and added a number of bomb, rocket, and fuel modifications for dozens of planes.

The development team is very thankful to all beta testers for their input in making War Thunder the game of MMO players’ dreams. The project is still in development, and players who join in War Thunder’s intense, realistic aerial combat during the open beta will also influence the remaining development and help to make the game even better.

To get started in the open beta, players must register an account, or log in to a previously created account, and download the game client directly from WarThunder.com.

Based purely on aircraft setting, World of Warplanes will allow players to build full-scale careers of virtual pilots offering machines of several key eras, staring from 1930's with biplanes and up to Korean War jet fighters that led the way to modern air forces.

War Thunder will feature a wide range of warbirds, each of them unique in their effectiveness and behavior. Virtual pilots will choose from three main warplane classes - single-engine light fighters capable of engaging enemies in close dogfights, heavy fighters with their deadly straight attacks, and strafing aircrafts, the fearsome threat for ground targets.

Every plane will feature multiple variations of ammo types, engines, and other crucial modules, and their various combinations will allow to pick the optimal configuration for the most effective behavior in combat.

War Thunder is designed as a free-to-play game with inclusion of additional paid content. The list of features that can be purchased, for very reasonable prices, includes: historical campaign  (a set of storyline-based missions that recreate historically correct events of WWII); leveling boost; several premium aircraft; full access to the dynamic campaign and quick mission editor, and additional options. However the general game modes and the majority of War Thunder’s rich content will always remain free. This will help Gaijin to maintain in-game balance, as the paid features have been designed so as not to give purchasers an unfair advantage.