Gaijin Entertainment has published its 13th War Thunder community update, laying out what is planned for the next major patch and the rest of the 2026 event calendar. The headline addition is a login-streak freeze that stops a missed day from erasing progress, but the update also teases new vehicles, a new weapon type, and a busy fourth-quarter schedule.
Login streak freeze
War Thunder currently rewards consecutive logins with trophies and decals, and a streak can be lost after only a short absence. The new Freeze system changes that. Players collect one Freeze for every 12 days they log in, up to a maximum of 30 per account. Someone who logs in daily for six months would bank 15 charges; a two-week break would then spend those charges automatically and the streak would resume where it stopped. Gaijin says the feature is available to everyone by default.
Vehicles, cockpits and a new guidance type
On the ground, China receives the ZBD04 infantry fighting vehicle, France adds the Dutch Cheetah PRTL to its self-propelled anti-air line, and Japan gets a Thai Firefly Mk 1 and an Indonesian Avia B-33 for ground attack. The French SE.203 Aquilon 203 also receives its fully updated cockpit.
The weapon list is more unusual. Japan’s GCS-1 is a self-guided bomb that locks onto large heat-emitting targets such as ships within infrared range: it drops like a free-fall bomb, then activates a search mode and guides itself. The British Wildcat HMA.2 is slated to gain the Sea Venom anti-ship missile, with room for four in place of Martlet and SPIKE missiles. Man-in-the-Loop guidance arrives for helicopters including the AH-64E Apache variants and the EC-665 Tiger HAD Block 2, and Gaijin says it is considering raising the battle rating of every helicopter that carries the feature.
Cluster bombs join the game as a new weapon type, but only for Air Battles, where Gaijin positions them as anti-tank area weapons for the Nuclear Escalation mode rather than standard Ground Battles. The British WE177A free-fall nuclear bomb also arrives on the Tornado GR.1.
Q4 events
The update maps out the rest of the year. The next Battle Pass begins October 21 with two German Second World War premium vehicles. The Dreams Come True birthday event returns at the end of October, a naval event for a US coastal vessel follows in November, and December brings a Chinese mid-tier tank event, the Silver Lion trophy, and a winter event with four rewards that runs into January 2027.
Gaijin has not announced a release date for the next major update, and the studio’s usual caveat applies: everything here is work in progress and subject to change, delay, or cancellation. The Student Pilot decal also returns with the code STUDENTPILOT, redeemable until October 30.
Sources
- Reporting source: GamerHeadlines
- Official announcement: Gaijin Entertainment
