Update "Stronger than Steel"

Update 13 March 2024

Commanders, the new major update "Stronger than Steel" is finally here!

In it you’ll find the most powerful top tier armored vehicles for the US and Japan. Like the M26 Pershing heavy tank - better than Shermans in all aspects! And the monstrous self-propelled gun, the Ho-Ri Production - a nightmare for any American tank.

Plus, further new additions await you in each country’s research tree: new heavy tanks for the USSR and Germany, aircrafts and several new firearms for your soldiers.

By the way, the soldiers in your squad learned how to use their own rocket launchers! Aim at an enemy armored vehicle and give the order to attack - AT gunners with rocket launchers will try their best not to let you down.

We have implemented the long-awaited feature that lets you take control of your aircraft's tail gunners. They are available on many airplanes, just don't forget to add an additional crew member to the squad to act as the gunner.

There will be an exclusive slot for one premium squad in your army! If you’ve been putting your premium squads aside in order to bring slightly more effective upgradable squads into battle, then soon you will be able to add them back to the army without sacrificing efficiency. In addition, battles will become much more diverse, because such units are usually wearing interesting uniforms and are equipped with unique weapons. This feature will be released separately after the update.

There are plenty more new improvements in the patch! Reworked Moscow and Tunisia locations, added "High performance" mode for previous generation consoles (Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 4 Pro), new animations for passengers in transport vehicles and many more interesting things. More details in the full patch notes:

Weapons and soldiers

Added new researchable weapons: Type Hei Automatic rifle (Japan); Type 100 MG (Japan); M1 Bazooka (USSR).
Improved firing animations for the following stationary machine guns: MG 34, Browning M1919A4, Type 92, Maxim with Shield, Maxim, DShK, Type 93.
Improved the M1 Garand’s texture.
Adjusted camera position while aiming for the Type 96 and Type 99 light machine guns (Japan).
Increased base ammunition for the following weapons: Beretta M31, Pavesi M42, Scotti Mod.X, Armaguerra Mod. 39, M1 Garand with grenade launcher.
Leaning has been rebalanced. Now it’s slower and increases the dispersion of the weapon when firing.
The camera position has been changed for the Thompson M21/28 (box magazine), Thompson M1928 USMC and Thompson .30 cal SMG.
Added sound effect of an empty clip falling to the ground when reloading for Mosin rifles.
Changed the name of the Italian Beretta M38 submachine gun to Beretta M38A.
Added more customization options for British soldiers.
British and American tankers now wear gloves on winter maps.
Added new firing sound effects for the following weapons: Mosin M91 rifle with suppressor, Nagant M1895 with suppressor, Welrod mk.2, ČZ vz. 27, Erma EMP with suppressor.
Corrected the clothing of premium soldiers when using the "Try out a squad" feature.
Fixed display of purchased clothing, according to the campaign, for squads in battle.
Improved interaction of engineer's guns with surfaces. Fixed AT guns shaking and stucking inside terrain.
Fixed occlusion culling related issues with certain bigger guns.

Vehicles

Added new researchable vehicles: Tiger H1 (Germany), M26 (USA), KV-1 (ZiS-5) (USSR), Ho-Ri Production (Japan), J2M3 (Japan), Ki-84 ko (Japan).
Added new premium vehicles: Achilles (USA), Ersatz M10 (Germany), LVT-4 (USA).
Added gunner positions for aircraft. Now players can switch to the rear gunner’s seat and shoot their pursuers.
Implemented physics mechanics for soldiers sitting in transport and open-topped vehicles. Now the steering wheel rotates in most vehicles.
Removed incorrect braking sounds for APCs with tracks.
Improved lighting in the tank vision slits, it can be especially noticed when switching between the different observation devices.
Increased color saturation in tank optics and observation devices.

UI

Added animation to reinforcement point changes in battle.
Added the ability to assign quick chat commands to any button instead of using the radial menu for orders
Removed green dots for squads with empty slots. Available slots will be now displayed under the list of soldiers.
Now slots that can accommodate new gear are highlighted on the interface.
Now it’s possible to spawn with a squad by double-clicking on it in the squad list during combat.
Adjusted the position of the tooltip window with the description of selected weapon or item (medkits, grenades, etc.). The window no longer obstructs the selected item.
Fixed an issue where Assaulter I class soldiers could have 10 upgrade stars displayed on the UI and could level up to 6.

Graphics

A new technology to simulate clothes moving in the wind has been added for paratroopers. Noticeable when inside the plane and when leaving it.
Added tracer effects from ricochets of all types of weapons.
Reduced the radius of the effect of leaves falling from bushes and trees due to explosions and large projectile hits.
Fixed the muzzle flash effect visible from the cockpit.
Added support for DirectX 12. It can be enabled in the settings.
When DX12 is enabled in the game settings, AMD FSR 2 becomes available.

AI soldiers

AI soldiers are trained to use AT weapons: rocket launchers and AT rifles. When ordered to attack enemy vehicles, AT Gunners will now use their anti-tank weapons and rocket launchers to defeat them.
Now AI soldiers react better to markers. Soldiers in the player’s squad prefer player's markers over markers of their teammates.

Locations and missions

Improved the water obstacles in the Gorge, Monastery, Kamenka River and Beloe Lake missions. More places have been added where tanks can overcome these.
Improved the placement of cover in the Al Jabal Farm, Gorge, Fortress, The Manor, Vysokovo Village, Pokrovskoe City, The Maisky Forestry and Quarry missions.
Improved the placement of cover and approaches to the "Church" capture point in the "Beloe Lake" mission.
Improved the placement of cover and approaches to the "Artillery emplacement" capture point in the "The Maisky Forestry" mission. The point itself has been renamed to "Warehouse".
Improved the placement of infantry spawn points, vehicle spawn points, and battle areas in the Wilhelmstrasse (Invasion), The Reich Chancellery North (Invasion), The Reich Chancellery South (Invasion), Quarry North (Invasion), Quarry South (Invasion), Pokrovskoe City (Assault), Pokrovskoe City (Destruction), Monastery (Invasion), The Manor (Conquest), Kamenka River (Conquest), Vysokovo Village East (Invasion), Vysokovo Village West (East), Le Bre West (Invasion)and Le Bre East (Invasion) missions.
Added a new mission "Munda Point: Laiana (Invasion)".
Added a new mission "River crossing West (Invasion)".
Added a new mission "La Perelle Village (Confrontation)".
Added an alternative capture point, improved the placement of infantry spawn points and vehicle spawn points in the Beloe Lake North (Invasion) and Beloe Lake South (Invasion) missions.
Added alternative capture points in the Fortress East (Invasion) and Fortress West (Invasion) missions.
Improved the placement of infantry and vehicle spawn points in The Voskhod settlement West (Invasion), The Voskhod settlement East (Invasion), The Voskhod settlement (Destruction), The Maisky Forestry South (Invasion), The Maisky Forestry North (Invasion), The Maisky Forestry (Destruction),The Maisky Forestry (Conquest) and Steel Mill South (Invasion) missions.

Consoles

Xbox One: Added "High performance" quality setting to graphics options. (will be released later)
PlayStation® 4 and PlayStation® 4 Pro: Added "High performance" quality setting to graphics options.

User modification editor

The Prefabs dialogue in the Sandbox mod editor has been improved: tooltips now better explain the button actions and a "Select" button has been added to select all objects of selected prefabs.
The text color has been adjusted in some of the dialogue boxes of the Sandbox mod editor to improve readability.

Other improvements

Fixed the crossplay filter in the custom matches list.
Server delay during online gameplay has been reduced.