I hope you all enjoyed your Xmas celebrations (or similar depending on your religion). It seems in Russia Xmas celebrates YOU! Wargaming.net has opted for the bold and daring (and workaholic) decision to release their new Japanese tank update on Xmas day! So it seems Wargaming does not celebrate Xmas personally, but they do for their players. Isn't that sweet?

The new update, coined the catchy 8.10 update, brings with it yet more content for players to immerse themselves in. The key of which is the long-awaited Japanese tank-line. As with all initial tank tree releases from World of Tanks, Wargaming only brought out one line initially, and this will be expanded later once they have balanced it enough. The initial line for Japan only features a tree from tier 1 to 10 featuring light and medium tanks.

These tanks offer yet again a completely different game and play style than the other tanks of the same tier from other nations. Japan currently seems to be focused on mobility, balanced with slope armour and short to medium range powerful guns. Penalised by long aiming times and poor accuracy, this will be familiar to players who play the Chinese tank lines. However, Japan varies in the way the actual tank bodies are and thus actually are somewhat closer to the American medium tanks in that aspect. Again, all of this is just the initial impressions from players and Wargaming, but as the update has been out longer and players really get into the tree it will become more apparent just how different these tanks are from the rest.

Beyond the new Japanese tanks, there are yet again map re-works and even a new map set in Japan. This is a large map (1KM by 1KM) set in Spring time in a classic Japanese village that sits inside a valley. They have also removed the Port map and will release it again once it has been remade, this is due to player complaints and dissatisfaction with.

Beyond the new additions there have been some balance changes to certain tanks from all nations, these can all be found on the official update link here (http://worldoftanks.eu/en/content/docs/release_notes/). There are also minor improvements to the graphics (still no multi-core support! Arg!) and of course a long list of bug fixes.

Be sure to check out the video below that gives more details about the different Japanese tanks and other changes in the 8.10 update