Hey Commanders,
First off, I owe you an apology for the long hiatus. Had to step away for a bit to get myself better, both physically and mentally. A lot of you were incredibly supportive through the whole thing, and I can't thank you enough for that. (A small handful were unnecessarily aggressive. You know who you are.)
Let me get the personal life update out of the way first.
Last time I checked in was back in September, saying updates were going to start flowing again. Then I blew out my back in early October. Big herniated disc in my spine (20mm, for the curious), and I nearly lost the use of my right leg. Couldn't move it, couldn't get out of bed, and the pain was on another level. That was a couple of months of barely being vertical, and I've been recovering ever since.
Since I'm a big guy, I chose the most minimally invasive route I could. That meant a long rehab, but it was worth it. I've only just gotten back to walking normally and sitting upright without wanting to scream. So word to the wise: take care of your spine. Seriously.
To stay sane, I kept making small games on the side, because it's both my hobby and my job. Those tiny projects led to a fresh wave of "game is abandoned" comments, which... no. Don't worry. Metal Thunder is not abandoned, and 1.0 is coming soon.
The shake-up update you've been waiting for since last year is finally here, and it brought a whole truckload of changes with it. This is the biggest update Metal Thunder has ever shipped, so buckle up.
🌐 Dubbing is Here!
You can now listen to the operators across 27 languages. Every single radio chatter line has full native dubbing. Localization was cleaned up across the board, and military terminology was fixed in all 30 languages.
⚔️ Complete Combat System Overhaul
If you thought the AC-130 was surgical before, wait until you feel it now.
Every bit of movement now feels like it's coming from an AC-130 instead of a drone. Everything was scaled accordingly, and the aircraft finally feels like the legend it's supposed to be. Immersion is on another level thanks to a complete VFX and SFX overhaul. 100% more BRRT on the Gatling, and every weapon sounds awesome now. (You can toggle the alternative sound mode off to get the old sounds back. Alternative mode is the default going forward.)
You can also adjust the height and speed of the aircraft, but it's not represented in the UI yet since it's more of a preview feature for now.
Moving the reticle feels much smoother, and the reticle locks where you're actually looking. No more vertical drift. You can also lock onto targets now, which is super useful for singling out armor.
New TargetHardness system: 5 tiers (Soft / Light / Medium / Heavy / Fortified) with proper damage multipliers. No more double-dip armor math. HP, armor type, and hardness each do one job. This sets the stage for new mechanics coming to every game mode.
Weapons reworked from the ground up. Bullet vs Explosive vs Shrapnel now matter. Gatling melts infantry 100x faster than it scratches a tank. The 105mm finally feels like the 105mm.
Soft targets die instantly to direct hits from most weapons. Shrapnel always kills.
Pierce upgrades across 10 weapons. 10% chance per card to punch through hardness tiers.
Range-based accuracy for ground units: accurate up close, sloppy at distance. Miss twice and they push in. Land a hit and they hold.
🤖 Smarter Enemy AI
Spread on approach: units no longer clump like a parade. They spread out a bit more, but don't expect fully realistic movement since Survival is more of a horde mode.
Aggression variance: each unit rolls its own aggression. Some rush, some hang back.
Suppression/flinch: getting hit staggers units for 0.6s with wrecked accuracy.
Faster retargeting (2s down to 0.5s), with proper turret alignment checks before firing.
🏗️ New Small Features
Vehicle movement VFX: dust trails for ground vehicles, exhaust smoke cuts out on death.
KillFeed: see your last kills, streak notifications, ally kills in green.
EnemyInfoPopup: first-contact intel on new threats (toggleable).
FloatingDamageNumber: world-space damage display (toggleable).
Ragdoll death: technicals now fling their passengers on destruction.
Wreck decals and doubled corpse decay (30s to 60s).
Rocket pre-spawn: physical rockets sit in the pods until fired, then reappear on reload.
MLRS circle spread plus lead prediction on moving targets.
You can now see how an upgrade affects weapon stats directly on the card.
🏆 Per-Mission Leaderboards
22 Steam leaderboards: 3 lifetime + 18 per-mission + 1 overall.
Weapon-specific leaderboards, ranked by lifetime kills.
Mission card now opens its own leaderboard directly.
Fully localized: dropdowns, titles, and sortie end UI across all 30 languages.
⚙️ Save System Hardened for Future Releases
Honestly the scariest part of the update. To make room for 1.0 and its full leaderboard system, a complete save wipe is coming in a later release. This patch may affect much older save files, but I did everything I could to prevent any data loss in the process.
🚀 Performance (Steam Deck Focus)
The performance pass you've been asking for. The VFX overhaul let me finally tackle the biggest offender in the game: the 100-bullet 30mm salvo. It runs a lot better now compared to before, though it can still bottleneck during very heavy projectile bursts. Squeezed as much out as I could without sacrificing the look.
Pathfinding optimized for large-scale engagements.
Target indicators pooled.
🔧 QoL & Polish
Abandon run now tracked as a separate stat with its own end card.
UI overhaul for Stats and Armory to better represent Survival mode.
Kill Feed, Damage Numbers, Hints, and Alt Weapon Audio toggles added to Settings.
Weapon name shows RELOADING / remaining time during reload.
Gunship camera tracks aim point when idle, orbit drift eliminated.
Win condition polished: timer ends, "Clear All Enemies to Win" appears, victory.
🐛 The Bug Hunt
Hundreds of fixes. The highlights:
Vehicles no longer get shoved around by explosions.
Friendly fire on troop rockets, fixed.
AI projectiles hanging in the air after target death, fixed.
Infantry not returning to walk/run animation after combat, fixed.
Multi-collider units taking multiple damage instances from one explosion, fixed.
Camera jumping at sortie start, fixed.
Weapon stats sometimes showing 0 on end screen, fixed.
Additional Notes
🧟 New Game Mode: Zombies (In Testing)
The mode I've been yapping about is near feature-complete. A brand-new game mode with base building and rules. I'm aiming to push it live around early May. It'll be a fun alternative to Survival until Campaign is finished.
A Quick Word on Campaign
The main reason Campaign kept getting delayed is that I wanted every mechanic locked in before handing you a narrative, and I can gladly say I'm finally there. I've pretty much remade the game from the ground up so I can decouple Campaign, Survival, and Zombies and balance each one on its own terms. Safe to say Campaign mode will be done very soon. (For context: I've rewritten the underlying systems 4 times already. A bit of a perfectionist.)
Honestly, Survival on its own already feels like a finished game at this point, so Campaign and Zombies will be the cherry on top. Just a reminder that Metal Thunder is as arcade as they come. There are a couple of great games out there where realism is front and center for the AC-130, and those are awesome for the full sim experience and I highly suggest checking them out!
This update took longer than any of us wanted. Thank you for the patience through the hiatus, the burnout, and the rebuild. The game that comes back is bigger, sharper, and a lot louder. More coming. Campaign mode is next on the runway.
See you in the skies, as always.
Tolga ⚡