This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/hobbydrama by /u/scorpiodude64 on 2025-07-20 01:55:53+00:00.
Content Warning: Discussion of the Challenger Disaster and mentions of death
I’m sure many of you are familiar with War Thunder to one degree or another. Or at least familiar with the leaks of restricted documents that happen from time to time. However, for those of you who aren’t, War Thunder is a multiplayer vehicular combat game made by Gaijin Games. While originally only having vehicles from World War 2 or just after, consistent updates over the past decade have broadened this range. With there now being thousands of vehicles including planes, helicopters, ships, tanks, and more stretching from before World War 1 into the modern day.
In addition to the leaks, War Thunder has had its fair share of other drama as well, from failed boycotts to the usual salt found with balance and economy changes in a multiplayer game. I’m not here to talk about that stuff though, I want to talk about one small part of one update in particular.
On June 19th 2024, Major Update 2.37 “Seek and Destroy” was implemented. It was a pretty typical update, adding new top tier jets such as the F-15C and Su-27SM for almost every nation, Belgian/Dutch aircraft, and some miscellaneous new vehicles, maps, bugfixes, etc. The most notable part of this update was that every nation got ARH (also called FOX-3) missiles for their top tier jet fighters. These being the most modern and effective type of radar guided missile, the War Thunder playerbase had been looking forward to them for a while at this point. With there even being a small playtest for ARH missiles during the last update as they had the potential to completely change the highest levels of the game.
Less notably, there were also some new loading screens to go with the update. New loading screens come every update and are some exciting illustrations of new vehicles, usually showing off one of the new features added in the update. They look nice and the different elements in them can move around with your mouse but generally, loading screens don’t get much attention.
A few days after the update released and the initial hype over ARH missiles and new vehicles calmed down, people began to look a bit closer at one of the new loading screens. Not at the planes or the missiles, but instead at the explosion on the left. While it was meant to represent a plane being blown up by one of the new missiles, the shape was very reminiscent of something else.
You see, this explosion in the loading screen was almost exactly the same as the one made when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded in 1986. This explosion was unmistakable and it’s not some obscure photo either. This photo of the cloud is literally the main photo for the Challenger Disaster Wikipedia page.
The Challenger Disaster itself was a highly publicized Space Shuttle launch with schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe onboard. When it launched in late January 1986, cold temperatures before launch had led to one of the rubber O-rings in the boosters stiffening. Soon after liftoff this seal failed and the entire craft then came apart, resulting in the deaths of all 7 crew members. Because there was a teacher onboard many children were watching at school along with thousands of other people when the disaster unfolded live on television.
Obviously it was not a good thing to use one of the most well known space disasters of all time as a representation of what your video game missiles could do. Players were also wondering how this had happened in the first place. The next day, a thread about it on the official forums was locked with the last message being a short apology from a moderator. They explained that it was a mistake by one of their artists who had been using an aerial explosion reference pack and did not know the context. Gaijin Games was originally a Russian company and is now based in Hungary. So it is likely enough that an artist there wouldn’t have known about the Challenger Disaster. The apology also explained that it would be replaced as soon as possible.
In the meantime, the story made the rounds being picked up by a few different gaming news sites. True to their word the explosion was quickly replaced on the following Monday, and this new version of the loading screen is still in the game to this very day.
