Water Nukes Debut in v31 — MOON Openfront

By the 7th of April, the vision was starting to take real shape. FloPinguin and Valentino sat down to discuss the details. Four maps would feature Water Nukes in rotation: Alps, Box, Baikal and Four Islands. The explosion radius was redesigned into a more circular shape, solving the pixel problem that had plagued the early versions. The gamemode was beginning to look and feel like something that belonged in the game.
The following day, it got its first audience.
On the 8th of April, Deshack recorded the first ever Water Nukes video in a small private lobby with Valentino, Taseker and Rick132. A quiet moment that nobody realised at the time would be the start of something big.
On the 9th of April, the gamemode was officially merged into the game.
Then Ultimus Rex posted a video.
Ultimus Rex uploaded footage of himself playing Water Nukes against impossible nations. It wasn't a planned promotional moment. It just happened, and it exploded. The video crossed 20,000 views in under a week.
What followed was a flood of its own kind. In the three days after that video alone, 14 more YouTube videos, shorts and livestreams appeared. Creators who hadn't heard of Water Nukes a week earlier were now building content around it. The community wasn't just interested. It was obsessed.
Even Evan, the creator of Openfront himself, was jumping into Water Nukes livestreams.
On the 3rd of May 2026, v31 launched. Water Nukes was officially part of the game, introduced as a special modifier. What had started as a technical impossibility was now a permanent feature.
In the official v31 changelog, FloPinguin was credited for building the gamemode. Valentino was credited for the idea.