Patch Notes — January 31, 2026

General

Squads

Max squad size increased to 3 from 2

• Bigger community, bigger squads! We’ll keep cranking this up as our community gets larger and the eventual target is flexibility for up to full 8-person squads, so it’s ultra easy to play with friends.

Bushes

• Effective camo rating granted by bushes increased to 50 from 45

Components

Extended Gearing

• Fixed an issue with inputs such that holding both forward and reverse simultaneously counted as throttling
• Fixed an issue where inputting handbrake and a throttle button was incorrectly counted as throttling
• Tooltip updated to reference “actively throttling” to clarify intended trigger
• Sense Overdrive now also increases Max Reverse Speed
• Relentless Adapter effect increased to 40 health from 20

Ammunition

Gargantuan shells

• Increased dispersion reduction speed penalty to 70% from 50%

Design Note: This change in addition to the precision aiming change below are intended to make it take a bit more commitment to ‘cheat’ the downside of Gargantuan shells via precision aiming.

Precision Aim

Precision aim behavior should now be more consistent, in the following ways

• Fixed a bug so dispersion is now reduced immediately upon the visual timer finishing, instead of over a short amount of time

Design Note: Precision aim timer now starts when dispersion is fully at base, instead of less than base dispersion + turret traverse dispersion penalty. Once the timer has been started, you may still move your turret in limited amounts without ending the timer. This should make precision aim behavior when altering your base dispersion or dispersion reduction speed (namely, in the case of Gargantuan shells) feel much more correct.

Movement

• We've adjusted how vehicle tracks' friction responds to slopes.
• The intent of this is to allow vehicles to drive on the TOP of rocks and cliffs correctly, as this was previously not the case. These surfaces had lower than intended friction in many cases.
• Rocks near the edges of slopes should no longer be slippery, and driving on them should behave much more as expected.
• However, vehicles should still correctly slip down steep slopes and cliffs.
• The other intent of this is for climbing behavior to not change for the most part; that is, you should still be able to climb the things you used to be able to.
• However, we can’t test every case. So, calling out any major differences you encounter here would be much appreciated so we can evaluate them.

We've also adjusted hover driving behavior in the following ways

• Blink should now scrape along the ground much less, especially when driving quickly over bumpy terrain
• All hovers should stick to the ground a little more, losing traction less often when driving quickly over bumpy terrain (this most commonly affected Yumiko and Cooper)
• They can still catch air if you're moving fast enough or hit enough of a slope
• The overall intent of these is to make hover movement feel more controlled, even at high speeds over bumpy terrain
• Tracks can now be overmatched by penetration values more than four times their thickness
• With this change, high penetration tanks should not have to care as much about avoiding tracks on light tanks

Replays [Alpha]

• You can now select which replay you want to watch
• With the replay setting enabled, the game will save replays for up to the last 10 matches
• If you want to preserve a specific replay, you can rename it at the OS level outside of the client to avoid it getting overwritten
• This means you can also send replays to friends for them to watch
• Replay controls like speed-up, slow-down, and a time scrubber have been added and can be accessed by pressing the control key while in a replay

UI

• Added settings for scaling the HUD and the minimap
• UI now scales more comfortably across different resolutions.
• 1080p UI scale is 10% smaller than it was previously while higher resolutions will be larger than previous
• Hovering over modules in the armor viewer will now tell you what the modules are
• Added descriptive text for Hull Traverse Speed and Turret Traverse Speed tech options
• The map name is now shown on the in-game scoreboard for easier reference
• Capture Base symbols are now team colored
• The loading screen has been updated with new visuals
• New music in the main menu
• Added a setting for changing your starting zoom level in sniper mode

Pre-Match Countdown

• Pre-match area is now slightly larger and circular instead of rectangular
• Horns are now disabled in the pre-match countdown. They become available once the pre-match walls go down.

Progression

Design Note: As we increase playtest cadence, we’ll be dialing in our intended tuning for the progression experience. We already increased some silver costs in a previous playtest update, and here we’re increasing the XP requirement for unlocking pilots. Our long-term intent is to keep power (vertical) progression fast (like it is now with tank leveling) so that everyone can get to a competitive level quickly and focus the longer-term progression more on optional (horizontal) unlocks like additional pilot, component, and shell options.

• Pilot unlock XP increased to 50k from 20k
• Squad XP and SLVR bonus reduced to 15% from 20%

Ranked

K Factor increased to 48 from 32

• K Factor determines how many total points are available to win per match result. This increase allows you to move up or down the ranks a bit faster.

Performance Improvements

• Major vehicle performance optimizations that significantly reduce CPU usage in large matches with many vehicles
• Reduced performance cost of off-screen vehicles by intelligently scaling back physics, effects, and updates when they’re not visible
• Optimized vehicle visual effects (dust, tracks, impacts) to reduce unnecessary processing while maintaining visual quality

Rendering & Visual Technical Improvements

• Improved occlusion culling, allowing the game to more efficiently skip rendering objects that aren’t visible
• Improved environmental rendering and landscape performance on supported maps, especially on lower-end video cards

Gameplay Feel & Stability

• Improved camera behavior in edge cases (including replays, spectator mode, and sniper transitions)

Platform (Linux)

• Removed the Linux Experimental Branch as we now deploy a native Linux client to the main Steam branch
• Fixed several issues with Nvidia cards on Linux seeing a lot of white artifacts when running on some of the higher video settings

Maps

Ravine

• Ravine has been visually updated and is now back in the map pool

Scorch

• Scorch has been visually updated and is in the map pool
• There is now a path on the backside of the eastern hill that can let tanks sneak across, just mind the gap and stay out of the lava

Wind Valley

• The two heal zones on the east field side have been removed

Fields

• The sniping spot at C1 has been blocked off for all but the most enterprising mountain goats

Divide

• Divide is out of the map pool for now as we update it

Vehicles

Alexis (Wall)

• New ability VFX

Atros (Siege)

• Updated model textures
• Siege transformation time reduced to 2.5s from 3s
• Re-added a crit module spot on the back of the tank that had previously gone missing

Brawler (Mine)

• Added WIP reload animation

Cooper (Stealth)

• New icon for Stealth Speed keystone tech

Deadeye (Elevate)

Tech Tree

• Shell Velocity tech option rescaled to 10/20/30/40/50 from 10/15/20/25/30

Donor (Ram)

Increase armor of plow clamps to 55mm (up from 45mm)

Design Note: Donor remains fun, but it hasn’t felt quite scary in a while. Since this thickness is most often seen when “wiggling” the front of the vehicle, this change should make penning a Donor frontally on the move more difficult, ideally without affecting the experience of penning the front when playing statically. With this, a charging Donor should be scary, but a static Donor should remain exploitable.

Evrand (Drone)

• Penetration reduced to 80mm from 90mm
• Ability Cooldown now starts at the end of drone duration, rather than when it is cast

Tech Tree

• Reload tech option reduced to 0.3/0.6/0.9 (down from 0.4/0.8/1.2)

Ikarus (VTOL)

• Shell damage increased to 85 from 70

Ability Cost reduced to 35 from 40

Design Note: This change is similar to our previous ones on Yumiko and Vanguard where we want to increase the effectiveness of the base tank relative to a fully maxed one. This ability cost reduction comes in combination with removing the Ability Cost reduction in the tech tree.

• New sound effects for the VTOL transformation

Tech Tree

• Ability Cost Reduction tech option replaced with Firing Dispersion Reduction option

Langston (Sonar)

Increasing roof dome armor to 18mm from 15mm

Design Note: This change seems small, but now makes the top of Langston’s roof no longer an overmatch auto-pen for tanks with 70mm pen or lower.

Increasing inside track armor to 55mm from 45mm

Design Note: The inside of the track was often an unintended weak spot when angled. This can sometimes still be hit with high pen tanks or when overangling, but this should happen less often now.

Tech Tree

• Replaced Unspotted Damage tech option with Max Speed tech option

Lyra (Heal)

• New ability VFX

Kwame (Repulsor)

• Turret Traverse Speed reduced to 20 deg/s from 29 deg/s
• Reduced Kwame front side armor to 75mm from 95mm
• Reduced Kwame track side armor to 60mm from 85mm
• Increased Kwame inner front side plate armor to 20mm from 15mm

Design Note: Previously, Kwame’s side armor was buffed in an attempt to see how far we could push a vehicle’s side armor and still have it feel reasonable. This set of tuning should maintain the side armor as a primary strength of Kwame, while being more reasonable to play against (especially for low-pen tanks).

Ranger (Ramp)

• New ability VFX

Yumiko (Blink)

• Increased gun mantlet armor to 45mm from 25mm

Increased turret cheek armor to 22mm from 20mm

Design Note: The above changes are intended to give Yumiko some semi-reliable ridge peeking options in addition to her all-in repertoire

• Turret Traverse Speed increased to 55 deg/s from 40 deg/s
• Max Strafing Speed increased to 40km/h from 30km/h
• Camouflage increased to 32% from 30%

Tech Tree

• Added a new Max Strafing Speed tech option

Sentinel (Smokewall)

• New ability animation and VFX

Vanguard (Missile)

• Multiple missiles popping should now happen sequentially with a slight delay between them, rather than simultaneously (they still only spawn one total slowing zone). This should make it easier to tell how much damage was done both when shooting a missile attached to an enemy or when having a missile attached to you being shot.
• Unpopped missiles attached to an enemy now automatically pop simultaneously when that enemy dies.

Vexa (Bush)

• New tank model
• Bug fixes
• Fixed Lyra’s module damage energy tech option not working
• Fixed an issue that caused some map areas to be unusually slippery
• Fixed bird calls so they’re heard by other players as well as the one that drove into them
• Fixed a bug where crushing damage could continue ticking after the crushing tank got off the crushee
• Fixed an issue where Ikarus could not drive if the ability module was shot during flight
• Fixed an issue where the armor visualizer showed some areas as green incorrectly that should not have overmatched. This affected plates that were exactly 1/4th the pen of the shooter (overmatches only apply when penetration is greater than 4x the nominal armor hit).

Known Issues

• Yumiko (Blink) users will notice a quick stutter at the end of the tank's blink ability