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PlayStation 4 Gets Free-To-Play, Cross-Platform Online MMO With 'War Thunder'

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War Thunder key art | Courtesy of Gaijin Entertainment

We know Sony 's PlayStation 4 will launch out of the gate with a healthy selection of AAA game releases like Bungie's Destiny and first party exclusives like Killzone: Shadow Fall and inFamous: Second Son. But Sony's adoption of x86 architecture brings something exciting to the table: real potential for cross-platform multiplayer games. Enter Gaijin Entertainment's War Thunder, a free-to-play MMO that should be splashing down close to the PS4's launch.

Gaijin Entertainment has also been developing the World War II based War Thunder simultaneously for PC and Mac, with the vision of delivering a next-gen combat MMO with a focus on aviation, armored vehicles, and even Navy fleets. So, I figured I'd take a shot in the dark and ask the Russian studio if there was any hope for cross-platform play. Fortunately, the Q&A was returned with some very good news, and I think the answers indicate that War Thunder has a strong chance of propelling the console-based free-to-play movement even further.

I've also learned that the game will be part of Sony's PS4 press conference at E3, so hopefully we'll learn more about the cross-platform functionality and launch window next month.


(Answers by Gaijin Entertainment's President & CEO Anton Yudintsev)

Q: What does the PlayStation 4’s hardware bring to the table compared to the PC and Mac versions of War Thunder? 

A: PlayStation 4 has amazingly powerful architecture and it is fixed platform. When developing for PC, you always have to provide a lot of settings, some of which will help to increase performance but only on certain configurations. Or for the sake of maintainability PC engineers are sometimes forced to choose a more universal approach when working on the larger amount of configurations rather than the most optimal because most players don’t have top of the line rigs. PlayStation 4 is a fixed platform which allows us to optimize at the highest levels.

Of course, we will still work on PC and Mac versions of the game, as well as the recently announced mobile version.

Q: In adopting the x86 architecture, Sony has also promised that the PS4 will be much easier to develop for than its predecessor. Is that in line with the experience you’ve had working with their development kit?

A: It is not only x86 architecture (which is, technically not x86, since PS4 is 64 bit platform), it is the whole paradigm shift. Sony really made a huge step towards ease of development. PlayStation 3 was very powerful for that generation, but it was much harder to exploit– the power was mostly in SPU units. We had to spend a lot of time developing code for the PS3.

The PS4, I am happy to say, is much more accessible.

Q: You consider War Thunder an MMO – will there be cross-platform play or interaction between PS4, PC, and Mac users?

A: That’s exactly our goal! And we are very excited about that. War Thunder will not only likely to be the first online game on PS4, and more over free-to-play game, it is going to be cross-platform.

Q: Reading the description of War Thunder, I was reminded of Battlefield 1942. It seems the focus is on aviation, but battles will also be waged by sea and on land. Are any of the scenarios in the game inspired or based on real-world events?

A: There are specific historical missions, recreated from real-world events. We put a lot of effort in being as authentic as possible  – we recreated vehicles based on photos and blueprints. We even recorded sounds from those historic vehicles, the ones that were still functional.

Q: This may be one of the first Free-To-Play titles on the PS4, and indeed one of the first on any Sony console -- can you discuss your monetization model? 

A: We are going to keep monetization simple and fair. There will be no pay-to-win (like it often happens in MMORPGs). For money, we will allow players faster leveling or even skipping some initial ranks, providing them the ability to jump to the higher level experience, additional vehicle customization, and other stuff like that.