Violent Sky Development Update

We’ve been busy with another major stretch of development on Violent Sky, with a lot of our recent work centered around one goal: making every chase feel dynamic.

Storm structure, tornado development, precipitation, visibility, radar, vehicles, and the environment are all continuing to grow together. We want players to be able to watch a storm develop in the distance, follow it on radar, position around changing weather conditions, and experience a chase that can unfold differently each time.

Here’s what we’ve been working on.

Tornadoes Are Becoming More Dynamic

A major focus recently has been expanding tornado development and giving tornadoes a much stronger sense of progression.

Funnels can develop from narrow, rope-like shapes and grow into larger mature tornadoes as the circulation strengthens. The funnel, ground circulation, dust, and condensation effects develop together to create a complete tornado from cloud base to the surface.

Our tornado system supports intensities ranging from EF0 through EF5, giving us room to create significant variation between tornado events.

Intensity can influence much more than size. We’re building toward tornadoes with different structures, appearances, lifecycles, and overall presence.

A smaller tornado developing across open farmland should create a very different chase than watching a large tornado emerge beneath a mature supercell.

That variety is going to be an important part of Violent Sky.

Storms That Build and Evolve

Our procedural storm system continues to expand.

Clouds can develop vertically, spread across the storm, move with the weather system, and form larger structures as storms strengthen.

We’ve also been adding smaller wisps and softer cloud details around the main storm structure. These help create the turbulent, constantly changing edges that are so recognizable in real thunderstorms.

Larger storm systems can develop broad bases, stronger towers, and more organized supercell-style structures.

We want storm watching itself to be part of the experience.

Seeing towers build in the distance, watching the sky darken, and following the storm as it becomes more organized should give players clues about what may be developing before a tornado ever touches the ground.

Rain Cores and Changing Visibility

Precipitation is becoming another major part of storm structure.

Storms can develop areas of lighter precipitation around stronger cores, with heavier rain concentrated beneath the most active portions of the storm.

Large walls of rain can dramatically change what the player can see from the road.

That adds another element to storm positioning.

You may have a clear view of the storm base from one side while another portion of the storm is completely hidden behind heavy precipitation.

During a chase, staying with a storm won’t always mean simply driving directly toward it. Visibility, precipitation, roads, and storm movement can all influence where you choose to position.

Lightning Inside the Storm

We’re also expanding lightning into a more localized part of our weather system.

Individual storm clouds can support their own lightning activity, including cloud-to-ground strikes.

This gives us more control over how electrically active different storms become and allows lightning to develop alongside the storm itself.

Some storms may produce occasional distant flashes while stronger thunderstorms can become much more active.

Combined with rain, darkening skies, and changing visibility, lightning adds another layer of atmosphere as a storm strengthens.

Radar Is Becoming a Real Chasing Tool

Radar continues to be one of the systems we’re most excited about.

Storms can display broader areas of reflectivity, with lighter precipitation surrounding increasingly stronger yellow and red returns within the storm.

As precipitation develops and moves, the radar can provide a much better picture of the storm’s structure.

The goal is for radar to become something players actually use when making chasing decisions.

If visibility drops inside heavy rain, radar becomes even more important. If a storm is changing structure, players should be able to follow that development from the chase vehicle.

Eventually, understanding what you’re seeing on radar should be just as important as watching the sky outside the windshield.

More Work Inside the Chase Vehicles

The chase trucks have also been getting a lot of attention.

Driving is being tuned to give the vehicles a believable amount of weight while keeping controls accessible during a chase.

Acceleration, coasting, braking, reversing, automatic shifting, engine RPM, and audio all work together to give the trucks a more natural feel on the road.

We don’t want players fighting the vehicle controls when a storm is moving.

At the same time, driving down a gravel road at highway speed should feel different from slowly positioning along the edge of a storm.

Functional Vehicle Details

The trucks are also becoming more complete inside and out.

Low beams can be controlled by the player, while brake lights and reverse lights respond to the vehicle.

Inside, we’re integrating functional dashboard information including speed and RPM.

We’re also continuing to develop the vehicle’s gear display and other interior systems.

Combined with the in-truck weather equipment and radar, we want the chase vehicle to become an important part of the experience rather than simply transportation between storms.

A lot of time in Violent Sky will be spent behind the wheel, so the interior needs to feel like a place built for chasing.

Atmosphere Beyond the Storm

We’ve also been expanding the atmosphere throughout the world.

Daytime haze, fog, changing visibility, and HDRP lighting are helping us create more variation between different weather situations.

A humid hazy afternoon can look completely different from a clear day, and a storm moving overhead can dramatically change the lighting across the landscape.

Storm bases can become dark and threatening while details across the ground remain visible.

These atmospheric changes are especially important in a game where players spend so much time looking toward the horizon.

Sometimes the first indication that something interesting is happening may simply be the way the sky looks in the distance.

Building Out the Countryside

We’ve continued expanding the rural areas of the map as well.

Violent Sky is heavily focused on chasing through open country, farmland, small communities, and back roads, so those areas need to feel like real places rather than scenery between storms.

We’ve been adding and expanding:

• Corn and crop fields

• Gravel roads

• Hay bales

• Fences

• Wind turbines

• Power poles

• Street lights

• Neighborhoods

• Rural roadside details

• Ponds and smaller bodies of water

Agricultural fields are being laid out in organized rows, and we’re continuing to experiment with subtle wind movement across crops and vegetation.

Seeing a field moving beneath an approaching storm adds a surprising amount to the atmosphere.

Giving Storms a Sense of Scale

Environmental detail is especially important when severe weather arrives.

Watching a tornado move across open terrain can be impressive.

Watching the same tornado move behind a row of power poles, pass a wind farm, cross farmland, or approach a neighborhood gives it an entirely different sense of scale.

That is one of the reasons we continue putting so much time into the world surrounding the storms.

The environment isn’t just a backdrop.

It is part of the chase.

Road layouts influence positioning. Terrain can change visibility. Towns and rural areas provide recognizable locations. Fields, wind turbines, power infrastructure, and neighborhoods help communicate distance and scale.

All of those things become much more noticeable when severe weather is moving through them.

Larger Storms, Larger Environments

As the game grows, we’re also putting a lot of work into supporting larger environments and increasingly detailed storms.

Large cloud structures, rain, lightning, vegetation, radar, vehicles, and environmental detail can all be active during the same chase.

Optimization is an important part of allowing those systems to exist together while still giving us room to continue increasing the size and detail of the world.

That work lets us create broader storm systems, larger crop fields, and more populated environments without sacrificing the scale we want Violent Sky to have.

Every Chase Should Have Its Own Story

That continues to be one of our biggest goals with Violent Sky.

We want weather conditions to create the chase.

Storm structure can change.

Rain placement can change.

Visibility can change.

Lightning activity can change.

Tornado intensity and appearance can change.

Your view of the storm can change depending on the terrain and which road you choose.

One chase might give you an incredible view across miles of open farmland.

Another may have you fighting visibility around the edge of a rain-wrapped storm.

You may watch a thin tornado develop beneath the base or find yourself looking at something considerably larger.

The combination of procedural weather, changing storm structure, detailed environments, usable radar, and vehicle-based chasing is what we believe can make Violent Sky stand out.

We’re building a storm chasing game where the storm is more than an event that happens in front of the player.

The storm is the experience.

There is still a lot ahead for Violent Sky, and we’re excited about where the project is heading.

Thank you to everyone who has wishlisted the game, followed development, shared our work, or sent us feedback.

We have plenty more coming.

-StormTrack Studio