War Thunder's Eagle's Shadow update will bring a new renderer with snow, vapor and water effects

Gaijin Entertainment has detailed the first batch of changes from War Thunder’s new renderer, which will arrive with the Eagle’s Shadow major update. The studio posted the preview on Steam on 9 November 2026 and says more is coming soon.

Snow, dirt and dust on tanks

Gaijin says the dirt system has been rebuilt from scratch. Settled snow will have a 3D texture and build up in thicker patches during snowfall, while dust looks grainy and mud looks bumpy.

Light dust will fly farther and settle higher on the hull, while heavy mud stays low. Coatings also respond to rivets, welds, hatch rims and gaps, collecting mostly in crevices and shaded corners.

Snow can melt, too. A running engine thaws snow on the engine deck, grilles and exhausts, and firing the main gun heats the barrel enough to clear snow from it.

Gaijin says the costliest work happens once when a map loads, and the system runs on every graphics preset where the old one was available.

Humidity and wing vapor

Each weather preset will have humidity data. Together with speed, altitude and angle of attack, it decides how strong vapor effects look in flight. Gaijin says they’re hardly visible on a dry, clear day, but three times stronger under low overcast or over the sea.

New wing vapor sheets appear at the critical angle of attack and grow with G-force and speed. They thin out at altitude, and on variable-sweep aircraft they turn with the wings.

Water glints and glow

Until now, only the sun reflected on water. Under the new renderer, muzzle flashes, fires and lamps reflect too, and at night light also spreads beneath the surface. Gaijin says a burning ship’s reflection can give away its position before you see the hull.

The effect is on at High or Ultra water quality. Medium and Low stay as they are.

Banding gone, godrays back

The old renderer produced dark bands in the distance at high altitude. The earlier workaround, stronger fog blur, also removed godrays (sun shafts through clouds). Gaijin says fog and haze will render correctly at all altitudes, with a sharper horizon, sea haze from high up, and the godrays back.

No more repeating clouds

Cloud patterns used to repeat in a wallpaper-like way at high altitude. Each patch of sky will get its own cloud shape with random offset and rotation. Gaijin says this works on all graphics settings on all platforms and needs no extra system resources.