Just you and your plane. It’s the most basic of setups yet also the one that truly tells you who you are. Above the ground, there is only one person you can truly trust and that is yourself. It is your skill, your determination and your choices that matter. Be an eagle, a bird of prey, graceful yet deadly, soaring high aloft in the skies, constantly observing, judging and then, with deadly precision, you strike.

Talking to Pavel Kulikov at Eurogamer Expo, Producer and the man behind Oculus Rift support for War Thunder, Pixel Judge delves deeper into the title; discuss the future of this upcoming title and the challenges on the way.

War Thunder builds upon the growing MMO scene. Currently in Open Beta and titled as a next generation MMO, the game focusses on military aviation from the Spanish Civil War right to the Korean War. It sounds simple but the challenge is immense. We are talking about decades here, full of planes of different types and shapes, blistering with guns, bombs and rockets. Modeling these accurately into a balanced and fun experience is a major undertaking, one that has yet to see a counterpart. Easily the most obvious question, we ask ourselves how all these planes can actually be put into a game without complications?

Well, Gaijin has a plan. Instead of changing the characteristics of each plane away from the historical accurate to one that would suit specific balance needs, Gaijin models the planes after the real life counterpart, using ‘official test data and flight manuals of the time’ and then balances the game around these and the data collected by game records. It’s a step away from the approach we continue to see in World of Tanks but also a bold one as it’s a colossal undertaking. Currently, with the game in Open Beta, several planes are currently with only placeholder models, some of which increase or decrease the planes potency to the dismay of the more hardcore flight-sim crowd. With roughly 300 planes already in the game, that all require accurate flight and damage models, you can see the scale of the game already and the amount of work that rests on the shoulders of the developers. Acknowledging this, Pavel confirms that roughly 600 planes will be in the game eventually, complimented with accurate flight models.

However, with that the story will not yet be done, as Pavel reminds us, for the above mentioned Ground Forces will be added to the game this very year and to top that off with a cherry, Gaijin plans to bring out Ships in 2014. Indeed, Gaijin has recently shown off the Ground forces release tree for the German and Russian Nation as well as actual gameplay footage of the Arcade gamemode at Igromir 2013 War Thunder Convention.

The biggest asset of War Thunder might very well be its diversity. It offers something for the casual and dedicated flight-sim crowd with its three different game modes: Arcade, Historical Battle and Full Real. Arcade, well, the name tells you all. Mouse and Keyboard is all you need to engage the enemy and get your share of fast-paced action with streamlined flight models. Historical Battle is a bit different. Allowing both Joystick and Mouse/Keyboard controls, this mode is more of a challenge as both the flight and damage models are geared towards realism. Positioning, tactical thinking and knowledge of fighter combat is essential to see success in this mode. Full real goes even further. Enforcing cockpits – which by the way, will all be completely modeled at launch – the player gets as close to the real thing as Gaijin and technology allows. No radar, no automatic spotting and you have only yourself and your plane to rely on to win the day. It is in Full Real too that the Oculus Rift truly comes into play. As Pavel puts it: ‘Virtual pilots always dream about having the ability to check what’s going all around him’, so Gaijin is committed on using this new technology in their new product.

Maybe most exciting is the fact that the developers are working on a special mode combining planes, tanks and ships. Players will fight over the same area with their preferred weapon of choice, giving them different options such as strafing tanks or, when on the ground, taking objectives. How it will play out eventually, we don’t know yet but if the footage shown at Igromir is of any indication, then this might be one hell of a game mode for us to enjoy.

The future is looking bright for the game, and speaking to the developers, we can see both their optimism and confidence. When asked whether he fears competition from Wargaming.net’s World of Warplanes that is set out to be released this year, Pavel only smiles and says: ’Back when they [Wargaming] released their E3 World of Warplanes trailer on YouTube, they had to disable the comments as it was flooded with people saying War Thunder was better.’