Tread Lightly: World of Tanks Dev Video Outlines New Physics, Fully Destructible Buildings

If there's one thing that's been missing from World of Tanks (and F2P tank games in general) it's the feeling of impact on your surroundings. I'm not just talking about pushing a tree over here and there, or rolling over a fence, I'm talking about the raw force exerted when a Tiger tank weighing 62 tons crashes into another tank or shoots a 16-pound explosive into an unlucky house.

It's something even WoT's main competitor, War Thunder: Ground Forces, doesn't have, so its no wonder Wargaming is paying special attention to this area in their next set of major updates for the tank sim.

For the most part, fancy physics effects associated with large impacts are often reserved for games like Battlefield who have both the time and resources to tackle the added debris interaction. However, Wargaming is moving forward with ambitious plans to pile on the physics effects in their quest for more realistic tank warfare.

Wargaming's new dev diary does a swell job explaining how World of Tank's mostly static environment will transform into a war torn battlefield as tank shells wiz through the air. Buildings will now take damage based upon the angle and type of projectile fired through it. Explosive rounds will send house fragments flying while armor piercing rounds will merely punch large openings, leaving most of the structure intact. Of course you could always just ram your tank through structures, watching as your tank climbs over the dynamic rubble.

World of Tank's tanks are also getting better at looking the part, with physics improvements being made to how tank wheels and treads react to the terrain beneath them. The new movement model even makes changes to each tanks "spring stiffness" which affects how the vehicle handles as it moves across both small and large bumps.

Wargaming hasn't stated if all these additions will make it into WoT's upcoming 9.0 update, but players can at least expect the suspension changes along with the ability to blow off a tank's turret and a new shading technique which will improve how different surfaces look. World of Tank's 9.0 update has yet to receive an official release date.