News Shorts – December 2025

Hello everyone,

Not every bit of news can fill a blog post, so today we are grouping some of the more noteworthy (small) items to share with you.

Winter Sale

Just a reminder, we are entering the last week of our Winter Sale, finishing on January 4^th. As mentioned here, nearly every title is 25% off with a further 20% available for bulk buys of $199 USD or more. If you have had your eye on a particular title or series, now is the time to have a look at the WDS store.

Blog Posts

You may have noticed an improvement in the quality of writing in many of our blog posts. Thomas W (username: Llaird) has joined WDS as our Community Manager. He has taken over the Game of the Week posts, and proposed subjects that delve into a range of topics including the history, and basis for many titles. If you haven’t read them here is a list of Thomas’ specialty posts to date - click the image to access:

Thomas has a range of posts planned for 2026, and we welcome further suggestions for areas you might like explored. Thomas can be reached via the WDS Forum if needed.

We are very fortunate to have several historians contributing at WDS, and we welcome Thomas onto the team.

Panzer Campaigns Stalingrad ’42 & Moscow ’41 Additional Material

User Paweł shared with us some proposed documents for campaign scenarios. We thought these were worthy of sharing with you all.

For Stalingrad, there is both a Scenario Card and game maps with overlay. See the (reduced) samples below:

For Moscow there are two versions of the game map (white and colour) as well as a scenario map showing where each scenario is on the master game map.

The full-sized files are downloadable from the following links: Stalingrad, Moscow. Paweł is interested to hear whether users see value in these additional documents.

Squad Battles Graphical Updates

As discussed in our recent Quick Take: Squad Battles blog post, and the subsequent Advance of the Reich 4.03.4 Beta, we hoped to have the ‘Burden of Command’ graphical updates for Squad Battles out to you all by the end of 2025.

Unfortunately, we are not going to make that timeline. Though disappointing, there are some positives. Following is a bullet point list of what has changed since the beta release:

·       All the graphics shared in the beta have been completely redone. We found a new methodology that allowed us to retain the different coloured transparencies. This essentially removed much of the dark background behind various graphics.

·       The original Burden of Command graphics have been completely reworked. For example, trees, brush, fields, and hex side items such as walls have all been redone.

·       Brand new East Front buildings. Burden of Command included Northwest European, Italian, and North African buildings, but nothing for Russia. We have had to create these from scratch.

·       New city and factory buildings. These have been challenging.

o   For factories, non-isometric squares were previously used. These felt out of place, compared to the new graphics. With the Stalingrad factories representing multi-hex structures, we have tried to show these isometrically. I expect this will be an area we continue to tinker with over time, but the included industrial buildings, are now more consistent.

o   For cities, we have had height limitations in what can be shown. We again believe we have a usable solution, that will be adapted over time. Please keep in mind these are 40 metre hexes, and the number of buildings in a hex would be limited. In the case of a city hex that is really only part of a city block. 

o   One area we hope to improve in the future is to increase both the allowable height of graphics, as well as allow the selection of the actual graphic used in each hex. Currently, all buildings are shown randomly which results in duplication and other issues. The Musket & Pike engine supports graphical placement so hopefully we receive that as well. In addition, there is a request to include landmarks, which would allow specific buildings such as churches, barracks etc to be shown in particular hexes. Please note, these are wish list items, they won’t be included in the next patch cycle.

·       Four graphical biomes are being worked on as follows: Spring/Summer, Fall, Barren, and Snow. Yet to be done is Tropical, and Desert. The positive news is much of the current work is applicable to Western Europe, but Asia will be another significant task.

·       Align the 2D graphics with the 3D elements. This has proven to be a much bigger job than first planned. We are trying hard to not have a jarring difference between 2D and 3D, and a lot of time has been spent on this task. This must be done for every biome set, and you start to understand what is taking the time.

·       Updated explosions and pyrotechnics using the new methodology. There are a range of new 2D graphical effects as well. All of these sprites are big improvements over the beta release.

I want to stress that we decided not to rush the update process. We are trying to get as much right for this round, rather than have to keep going back to it in the future. That has meant that we have fixed a range of small issues as well as spent additional time upgrading the various graphics. The positive news is we are close to having the Eastern Front graphical set done, and the three associated titles will hopefully follow soon after. Apologies to all that had hoped to see the updates now, but you will get a better product.

Following are several screenshots, as well as comparisons of what has changed, both from the original, as well as the beta. All images can be clicked for full size if applicable. All the usual disclaimers that this is all work in progress.

This following shot has a small section of map comparing the original graphics (top), the beta release (centre) and the latest version (bottom).

The next three shots are the full sized versions of the above, in the same order:

This is a zoomed out view (4 key) of the latest 3D:

The following two shots are of the same map, but with the new snow graphics at both zoom 5 and 4 , respectively.

And finally, to complete this set here are the relevant 2D images at zoom 3.

The next four shots are of a town and city area at both zoom level 4 & 5, and in summer and snow:

The following three images are of factories in Stalingrad:

This image is an early version of the barren trees:

And some mixed terrain with long grass and fields:

The next shots show a comparison of the 2D & 3D in a scenario:

And similarly, a winter scenario:

This shot is from another winter scenario. Thee have been significant changes to the 2D graphics compared to the original set:

And finally, a number of shots of a meeting engagement:

We have only shown a limited amount of 2D in the above as we are still working to align all elements, but we hope you can see the overall direction we are going, and can see the improvements since the beta release.

We hope you found the information included useful. We are very busy with both projects and the current sale, there is just so much going on. We are also planning to publish our 2025 End of Year Update in the next couple of weeks, so do come back and see what we’re up to.