While there were plenty of things to pay attention to in War Thunder’s recently released Seek and Destroy update, players were paying attention to something else that ended up being quite surprising: the update’s keyart, which used a photo from the explosion of the Challenger space shuttle as part of its imagery.
While some players tried to paint this realization in a nefarious light, most others assumed that the explosion cloud was part of some AI generator artwork sourcing an otherwise widely available photo from the historic event. The reality of the situation was a bit more mundane, as the cloud was “part of an aerial explosion reference pack used by [Gaijin’s] artists and the context was lost,” according to an explanation by one of the game’s community managers.
“We’ll be altering this artwork as soon as we can and will take measures to ensure that this doesn’t repeat again in the future,” the CM further notes. “Please accept our sincere apologies for this.”
