This last week has seen a lot of progress towards the Free Weekend and we’re closing in on the changes we wanted to make to World War 3 to best accommodate the influx of new players. Changes we’re planning focus on ease of understanding what to do and teammate visibility among other things and we think it will help to get the new players acquainted with the game. Remember to help them as well!

We’ve also had a small patch on friday that fixed two major issues, thanks to the community bughunters for letting us know quickly about the problem resulting in quick fix.

We’re presenting to you selected questions from the AMA we’ve announced two weeks ago. Rest of the questions will be answered and posted to our website and forums.

Q: Are you planning on adding on existing maps a game mode Editor? – Ammax

A: Sure, but first we need to finalize World War 3 early access. It could be great to give players the opportunity to create their own levels/map and see the results (even if they are crazy). In fact, lots of WW3 team members were a part of the modding community in the past and we see a great modding potential here! But to make it happen, first we need to finalize World War 3 and after that stage, we can prepare a special dedicated tools for modders.

Q: When will the large map game modes come back? – Smok3

A:We believe that Warzone in current scale is close to perfect …but for your information, you will find larger maps and more players in Recon game mode.

Q: Will there be options for custom games with custom settings?

To make game modes like headshots only, 200(+)% health, etc. – Matt_dOvale

A: Yes, we are considering custom games & private servers in future. Any suggestions are more than welcome.

Q: Do you have any plans to run the battle royal mode? Your graphics and playability is much better than in PUBG, and the Smolensk map is perfect for this game. Please, do it, this mod will provide you with hundreds of thousands of players! – rossoner1>Olo

A: Yes, we are planning to add new gamemode RECON, which in fact is our own battle-royale, but more tactical and squad oriented …stay tuned!

Q: Will we see more SMGs? Or PDWs? Like obvious “iconic” stuff like P90, MP5/7/9, CZ Scorpion, HK UMP and etc.- BeatriceJohnes

A: Yes, more SMG will come soon and make you happy!

Q: Will flying vehicles be a thing? Not jets maybe, but transport or attack helicopters? – BeatriceJohnes

A: We have helicopters in game, for you information – we add new combat helicopter MQ-8C Fire Scout in Giga-Patch, who serve as an attack helicopter… and we will probably add more helicopters in future. Airplanes & Bombers serve as a support strikes, because our goal is to recreate essential elements of modern combat experience from infantry perspective, where drones or precision airstrikes are crucial in combat.

Q: Will there be progress resets/wipes? If yes – why and can you not do that pretty please? – BeatriceJohnes

A: There will certainly be progress wipes, at least one. But don’t worry – we will compensate wipe by giving players something like extra XP, extra cash etc. We’re not doing it for fun, it’s sometimes required if we make big changes to how the XP or other parts of the system work. We have some big changes planned, that’s why we know at some point it will happen – we’ll try to save as much progress as we can though.

Q: What “playstyle” or “role” you intended for tanks and vehicles? Why you balanced them the way you did? (Are they supposed to be this weird “force to be reckoned with but not really” as currently they are good for standing on points providing some cover and firepower. Is that all they supposed to do? They are pretty hard to destroy, unless you have a whole team of RPGs, as they can easily avoid artillery/air strikes and singular RPG strikes do not that much damage. But besides taking punishment? It seems like they can’t do much) – BeatriceJohnes

A: Vehicle’s role depends on their combat designation, for example IFV main role is to support infantry in achieving their combat goals, MTB key role is to fight against other vehicles, AFV general role is to support MTB and IFV in combat. Any vehicle will be vulnerable if don’t have proper support or cover in combat, that’s how the way it is in real life and in our game. Our intent was to encourage cooperation between infantry and vehicles for better combat efficiency against enemy forces. Our main principle in balancing Battle Points was that an Airstrike/Bombing/Artillery cannot be cheaper than a maxed out vehicle if it can destroy it. We would not agree that vehicles are that static; however if the drivers chooses this playstyle, perhaps it is the most efficient way to score.

Q: Do you have any intention to have a “dedicated sniper” “class” in this game? Like a full back line support that can provide some info, pick some targets, drive some drones around from safety and etc. Because right now I can’t get rid of the feeling that most of the maps are deliberately designed to prevent any kind of camping – there are no good elevated/covered position, no good lines of sight, no places where you can hide to use drones and etc. While I see how “anti-camping” map design is a very good thing I still wonder if it’s intentional? – BeatriceJohnes

A: It is intentional as we don’t think camping is a good thing for the overall game – great teamwork is something what we want ! There’s nothing fun in getting sniped from afar, we’d much prefer snipers to provide covering for and support for their squad, not just find a good spot and lie down there for the whole match – this is not teamplay and it’s not helping your team win since there’s no ticket bleed.

Q: Are you planning on changing/updating weapons stats and descriptions? Because right now they are very very basic, vague and in general hard to understand and distinguish between different weapons/strikes. – BeatriceJohnes

A: To be honest, weapons have lots of stats but they are not displayed in the menu at this moment. We’re planning a total overhaul of the customization UI and it will also change how we show stats.

Q: Are you going to be on E3 with WW3 ? – tommac

A: Yes, we have a small squad on mission at E3!

Q: The dates for final release are still valid (the end of this year / the beginning of 2020)? – tommac

A: Yes, we’re still on track, but if the game needs a few weeks or months more we’re not going to rush it out.

Q: Why UE 4.21 and not the latest 4.22 ? – tommac

A: Because changes in 4.22 rendering pipeline require a lot more work and don’t give us very much – we’ve tested it and there’s a minimal performance upgrade from 4.21 to 4.22. 4.21, on the other hand, includes very important updates for us, mainly replication graph, which should reduce the server CPU usage by a lot.

Q: Any chance for RTX support in WW3? – zucker_rdrg

A: We’re in talks with NVIDIA about using some technology, but we’re still very much in development of the base game and we’ve decided to wait with adding features like this.

Q: Are you going to add weapons progression system? daily missions or something like that? – francolt

A: There are some plans for this specific case (weapons) and for a global challenge system. First iteration should be in the Technical Update.

Q: What can we expect as content wise? What can you tease? – spacesoldier117

A: A lot more guns. The Battle Rifle category is quite empty at the moment and you’ll see a few more added. With Recon we’ll introduce some really interesting weapons, some of which were never done in games before – Can’t wait for you to see them!

Q: Max playercount per server increased in 0.7 or 0.8 and will warzone large come in 0.7 or 0.8? – Salt Lord

A: We’re aiming to have bigger servers back as soon as possible, but we can’t promise a solid date on that one, there’s just too many variables.

Q: After the game launches will there be more guns,vehicles,etc added? – PointShootActionTTV

A: As long as there’s an interest in World War 3, we intend to add content and features.

Q: What’s been your favorite thing or moment so far developing the game and what has been the worst? – PointShootActionTTV

A: This is probably different for everyone, but for a lot of us the best moment was showing the game at Gamescom for the first time and seeing how easily people understood what we wanted them to do. Watching people that have never played before covering each other, working together and just playing exactly like we designed the game to play was a great feeling and will probably be with us forever.

As for the worst, I think we’re all aware of that one.

Q: I heard there will be a customization revision, is it possible to get more detail? – HondoUnicorn

A: Yes, we’re currently working on a brand new customization, that’s both from the technical point of view (so it’s more responsive) and the usability point of view. The basic idea is to split the customization into creating and equipping: this means a ‘Workshop’ of sorts, in which you create the weapons, soldiers and strikes and then a separate area in which you equip them. This equipment section is also planned to be available in a match, so you’ll be able to switch out the visual customization, equipment and strikes, not only the whole loadout like it is now.

Q: Spectator mode and video editor? I think for content creators it will be useful. – HondoUnicorn

A: Spectator mode is being made, we’d also really like to create a replay system, but for now this is not being implemented.

Q: What is going on with recon mode? Any release date? Could I sign an NDA and play recon mode, I’ve been wanting that mode for a long time.- MrMrMr

A: We’re all waiting for it, but it doesn’t make sense to release it unfinished. We’re also testing it behind closed doors, because it changes a lot and we don’t want false information to mislead people.

Q: When game will start using the new version of the engine? – ೞoℓf

A: We have it planned for the next update after the Free Weekend, so not far off.

Q: are there any plans to change the players animations in the near future for example the funny running *moonwalk* – Pyroclutch

A: Yes, one of the upcoming milestones is the Movement Update – we’re redoing the movement system from the ground up to make it look better, feel much smoother, less buggy and easier to expand.

Q: Weather change and day / night system? Even not-dynamic, but just different variants of maps? – mrocznydrwal

A: We have different variants for different game modes and we’re thinking about a good way to make this happen. Due to us using pre baked lighting, each lighting scenario is requiring a lot of HDD space for the lightmaps and we don’t want the game to require 100GB+.

Q: When do you think server performance will be fixed?- nubbits

A: Optimization is not something that’s ever done, we know engine update will make a big difference, but that’s not the end. There’s always something to be improved or tweaked, so it’s going to get progressively better with time.

Q: What plans are there for improving the metagame? – nubbits

A: With the new customization menu the metagame will also get an overhaul. It’s going to be less convoluted and easier to use than right now, but we can’t give any details as of yet.

Q: Any plans to rework the squad management. Would be nice to be able to see the names of the teammates on map while in squad menu or to see where each specific teammate is located on the map. Atm you can only see the dots on the map, without knowing who is who.- Gutshot

A: Deployment screen rework is coming and some of those ideas will be in – definitely a way to see where someone is.

Q: When Recon will be released it will be on all maps? If not, which ones? Is it worth waiting for it on all maps? I really want to see it on Polyarny. – Akan

A: It will be on all maps!

Q: Are there any plans to record the match? As in Battlefield 2 on some servers it was possible to download the file of the last round. Or add a Killcam (A camera that shows on behalf of the enemy how you were killed.)? At least for TDM. – BadRussiaN

A: We’re not 100% sure about replay system (we’d like to add it, but it’s not that important compared to some other improvements), killcam not something we’re interested in. Having it in TDM only might be something we’ll take a closer look at, though.