War Thunder developer apologises after imagery from Space Shuttle Challenger disaster appears in artwork
War Thunder developer Gaijin Entertainment has issued an apology after it accidentally included imagery from the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in a piece of key art.
The error was quickly noticed by members of the War Thunder community, who shared the image on the game’s forum and reddit to show how the artwork lined up with images of the 1986 disaster. This real-world incident resulted in the death of all seven crew members on board the space shuttle.
“Maybe it was an accident on the part of the artist, but it seems in incredibly poor taste,” one poster wrote on the War Thunder forum.
Gaijin Entertainment has now acknowledged this error. “Please accept our sincere apologies for this, the picture was part of an aerial explosion reference pack used by our artists and the context was lost,” community manager magazine2 wrote on the forum.
“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.”
A similar statement was also shared by War Thunder’s international community manager Oxy on reddit. Oxy said the artwork will be changed today (Monday), adding: “sorry everyone, things like this shouldn’t happen.”
War Thunder has previously made headlines due to players leaking classified military documents to the game’s forums.
This has included a flight manual for the Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk, documents of the DTC10-125 Chinese anti-tank missile and documents on the F-16 fighter jet, which were shared by one player in an attempt to win an argument with another member of the game’s community.
