No doubt players would love to see all their tank models updated at once, but reality is that it’s a huge undertaking and it takes a lot of time. WARGAMING chose iterative approach and currently we have three branches of tanks updated to PBR:
- American ‘Yoh’ heavies
- British light tanks
- European swedish heavies
In 8.3 update another batch of tanks will be updated to new PBR models
WARGAMING has upgraded the appearance of both the tanks themselves and their legendary camos. The stars and the Soviet Guard sign look more prominent on the “Battle-hardened” camo for the IS-7, and the “Stalwart” for the E 100 now features the Balkenkreuz insignias—emblems of the Wehrmacht. Along with PBR, HD textures, and environmental effects, the IS-7 and the E 100 have received completely redesigned 3D models with improved detail and the corresponding collision (server) models. The overall armor profile of both vehicles remained the same.
One premium tank will also receive the PBR treatment – the american heavy VIII T54E2.
Withdrawing premium vehicles from the tech tree
In Update 8.3, WARGAMING will remove the majority of premium tank offers from the tech tree UI—except for the Dicker Max, IS-6, and T23E3. There has been no demand for the other vehicles according to WG stats, so they decided there’s no more need to keep them in the tech tree.
Those tanks had been added to the tech tree long ago, when the in-game store lacked diversity of offers for those who wanted to get a premium vehicle. Now, the ingame store provides great variety of bundles which are more beneficial than just buying tanks via tech tree, and some deals are even better than the ones on the tech tree.