The 1986 Challenger Explosion is one of the most horrific moments to ever air on American television. Due to a series of issues, the NASA Challenger shuttle blew up after takeoff, taking the lives of all seven crew members. Now, 38 years later, War Thunder developer Gaijin Entertainment has used the explosion to market its game.
The new promotion keyart for War Thunder’s Seek and Destroy event shows three jet planes firing missiles through the sky. To the left, one plane is situated right next to a recognizable debris field that fans immediately identified as an iconic image from the Challenger explosion.
War Thunder fans shared the image on the game’s popular subreddit. A short video shared by a fan compares the Challenger Explosion with the game art, showing that the two explosions align exactly, confirming the use of the original explosion instead of an artistic representation.
Developer Gaijin Entertainment quickly apologized on multiple social channels for using the American tragedy in its promotional image. Alongside the apology, the studio announced plans to replace the current keyart as soon as possible.
“Hey guys, please accept our apologies for this. The picture was part of an aerial explosion reference pack used by our artists, and the context was lost,” a community manager said on Reddit. “We’ll change the key art on Monday and will make sure this doesn't happen again. Sorry everyone, things like this shouldn’t happen, and we’ll make sure it doesn’t repeat.”
“Hey guys, we accidentally used the explosion from the Challenger disaster in one of our key art images,” another post on the War Thunder forums reads. “We’ll alter this artwork as soon as we can and will take measures to ensure that this doesn’t repeat in the future.”
While the Challenger Explosion is one of the most infamously shocking TV events in history, it’s also been almost 40 years since the tragedy. With this in mind, the majority of War Thunder’s Hungarian development team likely isn’t even aware of the shuttle’s explosion, and its iconic explosive photograph is just another reference photo under a modern lens.
War Thunder is available as a free-to-play game on PC, Xbox and PlayStation systems.