World of Tanks
World of Tank s wants your money or your life.
If you’re in the market for digital tanks, well, World of Tanks lives up to its name. There are hundreds of them. Tanks from Russia, America, Britain, Japan… I’m no military fanatic, but I’m in awe of the sheer number of armored vehicles on offer. There’s something a little sinister about this vast arsenal of death machines being displayed to you like toys. It’s got loads of tanks, is what I’m saying. But how much fun are they to actually use?
World of Tanks feels like it’s been in beta for a decade (nope, only eight years) but, if you’ve still not heard of it, it’s a free-to-play competitive online multiplayer game that pits dozens of tanks against one another in big battles. Compared with its rival War Thunder, World of Tanks is much more of an arcade-like experience. Tanks are easy to control. If you’ve driven one in any action game from the last decade you’ll have a good idea of what to expect.
Each tank feels convincing, with slow-moving turrets and gradually building speeds, but it’s how they interact with the environment that really sells it. You’ll crash through walls and watch the water of a river roll away under your weight. The thunderous noise of each shot of the cannon proves most satisfying, especially with the metal clang that follows to signal a hit. There’s a lot of detail and, when there are dozens of tanks in the fray, World of Tanks does chaotic spectacle with majesty. It’s not all chaos, though. For a team to succeed coordination is required. Individually, you’re trying to stay concealed, or ensuring that your armor is facing the enemy. As a team, you’re providing covering fire or flanking maneuvers. It’s a shallow layer of strategy. You do need to consider vantage points, concealment, and armor (you’ll experience many hours of a man shouting, “Penetration!” at you over and over), but the UI feeds so much information that not a lot of learning is required, nor is there ever really much tension. You know when a shot lands, you know where an enemy is the moment they fire at you.
After a while, the accessibility becomes a double-edged sword. World of Tanks is more approachable than any of its competition, but it’s lacking in depth by comparison. Given the amount of time you’ll have to spend grinding to unlock tanks, it feels a shame that there’s really not all that much nuance to master. It’s enjoyable in the game’s initial hours, but a dozen or so later? Dull.
Get grinding
You’ll be spending a lot of time grinding, as the process of unlocking a new tank is anything but straightforward. World of Tanks’ roster of vehicles is organized into unlock trees. To upgrade to a higher tier, you’ll need to have the previous tank in that branch. But you’re not able to actually purchase it until you research it. When you do buy it, you’re still not done because you need to kit it out with gear. Which is to say nothing of the time it’ll take to earn the currencies to complete each stage of the process, with separate funds for research and purchase.
Obviously this is to nudge players towards spending money, and that means buying gold, which you can then exchange for the other in-game resources. Whilst the costs of early tier tanks aren’t too bad, those prices quickly ramp up. Final tiers require a fair amount for one tank. And it’s only in those final tiers that newer strategies and meaningfully different tanks become available.
Holding back those more varied vehicles means that most of the hours spent with World of Tanks are a flat experience. You’ll quickly master the rhythm of combat, and there are no major shake-ups to the formula until you’re many hours in. It’s a big investment, and though the later game is more involved and more dynamic, it’s hardly worth the cost in time or money. World of Tanks is a fun arcade shooter, but it’s not a great use of your time.
After a while, the accessibility becomes a double-edged sword