World of Tanks Game Review 2023

 

If you're not familiar with Wargaming.net's free-to-play game World of Tanks, the premise is simple: take a shooter and replace the people with massive, wooden, and highly realistic tanks. Narrow corridors are replaced by wide, open vistas, and your weapon range is replaced by … more tanks. A whole world of them, in fact. World of Tanks is structured as session-based, with two ways to win each session, namely Counter-Strike and one round of Counter-Strike. Either destroy all your opponents or capture their base.

Tank combat in World of Tanks is satisfying for the most part. When you land a shell right behind an enemy tank, the hard sound of impact is very convincing and you feel like you are at the wheels of a brutally powerful machine of war.

Most battles in World of Tanks have at least some element of luck, and sometimes that luck can work against you to such an extent that it becomes frustrating and annoying. The most obvious is the way tanks aim, which is displayed by a circle that widens with movement and gradually shrinks as long as you stand still. Even if you don't linger long enough to make the target circle as narrow as possible, there will always be some leeway, and that miss, at great distances, can miss you more often than you hit. All of this is supposed to make the experience more realistic, but this realism comes at the expense of fun.

This isn't such a big problem, but World of Tanks also has a very in-depth method of calculating armor and whether your rounds pierce, and if so, how much damage they do. These calculations take into account what part of the enemy you hit, what angle the shell hit, and what type of round you are using. None of this is really explained in-game (though there is a wiki that goes into extra detail) and even these calculations still seem to leave some things up to chance, causing me to shoot five point-blank cannon rounds from the middle. German tanks are level behind a KV (a heavily armored Russian tank) and do literally no damage. This was probably my biggest "key impact" moment in a game in a long time.

There is no information in the game that explains how line-of-sight works and why an enemy tank can literally disappear before your eyes, but this is also a series of calculations. The opacity of many of the game's systems leaves a lot to be desired, and playing World of Tanks and being dominated by someone who has read all the information there can be a negative experience.

Fortunately, even without doing your homework, World of Tanks is still fun and easy to jump into... instinctively know that attacking a tank-destroyer from behind is a good strategy, as the armor looks thinner there. Or maybe peeking out from behind a boulder tall enough to fire a volley before retreating behind cover (and hoping lady luck makes it your target) is another smart idea. They're callbacks to standard shooters, where aiming for the head and ducking behind boxes feels as natural, casual and logical as eating when you're hungry and stopping when you're not.

Likewise, wanting a more powerful tank is a natural instinct, and Wargaming.net is counting on it. Tanks are divided into tech levels, and to go down a level with any country (US, Germany, and Russia are the current three available) you have to research most of the improvements on your current tank, then research the next tank, then actually buy it. . It's a pretty quick process at first -- only a few hours of play time for levels one to two and then two to three -- but by level five I'm looking at a solid week of at least three game hours per day on a premium account (probably more). Progressing in World of Tanks soon feels boring and gets worse the further up the level tree you go. Buying a new tank can sometimes feel like a downgrade (usually due to a drop in speed or accuracy) and upgrading your engine, guns, track and turret almost immediately becomes necessary for your tank to stand a chance in battle.

It's not often that a low-level tank can completely destroy an upgraded high-level one, so World of Tanks tries to ensure that tanks of equal level are placed together in games. Unfortunately, matchmaking isn't always perfect, and there have been times when I've been put in heavily stacked games. It's rare, and probably depends on whether you're playing at peak times, but it does happen.

Despite these flaws, World of Tanks is still a fun multiplayer game. This is mainly thanks to the very clever map design. Playing as an SPG (or self-propelled gun), it's impossible to find a position where I can actively attack distant tanks without putting myself at some risk (which is great for balance), and when playing a tank, I can be tricky. Using ridges and hills to ensure I wasn't blinded by artillery fire, but ultimately leaving my thin top armor open for attacks from ground attacks. There is rarely a position where I feel I can safely hole-up and wait.

I do have some concerns about balance -- particularly what players call the KV the "derp-gun", a massive cannon that seems capable of destroying even medium-armored tanks with a single shot. I know it's slower to reload and aim, but even that doesn't seem like enough of a tradeoff for the sheer power of that weapon.

The heavy metal thunderdome that World of Tanks 1.0 finally hits is heralded by the sound of exploding shells and colliding machines. It's not 1.0 in a conventional sense, but it gives us an excuse to finally give it the review treatment. Here I think, eight years late.

World of Tanks sits at the intersection between arcade and simulation. Its battles are swift and short, with simple objectives and fleeting lives; But it's also a game of geometry and strategy, finding the perfect angle and trying to force enemies to reveal their weak spot through teamwork and even stealth.

I use the verisimilitude vs. accuracy comparison a lot when I write about historical, military, or otherwise swashbuckling games, and I'm bringing it up again. If you don't think too much about it, World of Tanks' bloodthirsty behemoths look like what you'd expect from a tank, though they're largely abstract. Much of the heavy lifting is done by obsessive graphics and audio engineers, whose work is newly highlighted in this 1.0 update. They asked questions like "How would water react to a tank moving through it?" and "How does a gunshot sound in a valley compared to a field?" and then tries to replicate it in the game. It's these small considerations that make battles feel real and real, even when tanks are pushing each other off cliffs or skating across icy lakes.

World of Tanks crashing into each other and exploding is much more restrained than the bombastic trailer. It's a considered action game that creates moments as quietly intense as explosive brawls. And these fights are dramatically different depending not only on what class of tank you play, but also on what level you're duking it out. At early levels, for example, you'll be fighting mostly low-damage light tanks, and occasionally SPGs, like and against artillery classes. Later, medium and heavy tanks began to appear along with Hunter tank destroyers and battles became more complex as a large number of tactics were employed.

Each class has different priorities. SPGs usually hang back, finding a perch or hiding spot from which they can safely pick out targets with their bird's-eye view of the battlefield. The light tanks push around, spotting the enemy, helping the SPG in particular, but also the entire team. Tank destroyers roam the map like deadly hunters, looking for heavily armed enemies to destroy.

Every class has exceptions, and a tank's class doesn't always define its role. There are beefy tank destroyers that are designed to square up to their quarry, head on, tanks, but there are also tank destroyers that can attack from longer ranges, especially near bushes where they can hide. This means there are many reasons to enter a new class, even if you think you won't enjoy it.

I've become rather partial to supporting tanks since I started playing again. Despite its importance, teamwork isn't as common as you'd expect in World of Tanks combat, at least not randomly. There's a minimap and an alert system, both of which prove to be extremely useful, but only if people pay attention to them. Playing a support role, then, can be simultaneously rewarding and frustrating.

Although there are usually at least a few players interacting and that makes some games like SPG more engaging. That extra-long range and wider view of the battlefield means you can react a little quicker, and rescue a friend if necessary, even if you're on the other side of the map. And since you're not on the front-line, it really helps people highlight problem areas where you can help.

Destroying enemy tanks is not as simple as shooting and shooting. Tanks are versatile, modular machines and no two models are alike. Their weak spots, heavily armored areas, and the thickness and angle of that armor all depend on the tank, so it takes a bit of homework. The reticle turns green when you hover over a weak spot, but in the heat of battle, you don't always have time to search. Know your goals before you start. And even then, you have to consider the performance of your own gun and ammunition, your tank's weight and engine power, and of course your accuracy. If you're moving, for example, or trying to fire quickly, your shots are going to be much more likely to go wide.

The result is that a single 15-minute fight can have almost all kinds of misses, close calls, tense standoffs, explosive charges and calculated attacks. With so many different types of tanks, a lot can happen. And if you get out of a fight, you can go straight back to your garage, pick another tank and jump right into another game. When the battle you quit is over, you'll gain access to another tank again. There's a lot of faffing around in World of Tanks, but it's remarkably good at getting you back into the action as quickly as possible.

Much of the faffing involved World of Tanks' complex progression system and business model. A boot camp tutorial that takes new players through a series of battles, combined with progression and currency walkthroughs, makes the first 30 minutes of the game surprisingly breezy. By the end you'll understand the basics, and a bit more, as well as have access to all three tier tanks. You'll also have some extra experience and credits that you can use to upgrade tanks you've already unlocked Then the training wheels come off and it's a little messy.

The problem is that, once systems are defined, they are over-complex and inflexible. Take, for example, the process of unlocking a new tank. First, you have to unlock the previous tank in the tree, then you have to use that tank to earn battle experience points -- slowly -- which you can then spend on upgrades and later tanks. But you don't own that tank yet. You just research it. You then have to spend credits to buy the tank, and then spend a few more credits to fill it with ammunition and consumables, such as fire extinguishers and medkits so your crew doesn't get killed by fireballs.

And that's just the simple explanation. There is also a separate free experience that can be gained slowly by any tank, which is then performed in a pool. Battle experience from other tanks can be converted to free experience by spending premium gold coins. If you don't have enough combat experience to unlock the next tank in the tree, you can use free experience to get there. After doing so, you will have the choice to spend more credits to train the crew inside your tank.

It's a terrible system that makes World of Tanks seem a lot harder than it is. It's a hassle at early levels, but you'll be able to fill your garage with tanks and even have your first level V car in a few days. Once you reach the final few levels, however, you'll start to feel the grind of playing low-level matches to maintain your high-level tanks, saving up to buy fancy ammo that will allow you to stay competitive. You can even win a match and lose credits while racking up a repair bill. The alternative is to spend cash.

A premium account gives you more experience and credits after a fight, but big spenders can also splash out on fancy premium tanks. They have been a point of contention within Wargaming and its community since day one. Wargaming argues that they are different but not more powerful, but that they are properly pressed to remove certain tanks that were demonstrably overpowered. The problem goes beyond balance, though. In any competitive game, the mere introduction of premium-content divides the community into haves and have-nots. And in this case, letting everyone play together only increases the feeling that some players have an unfair advantage, imagined or not.

This only becomes more apparent at higher levels, where the game becomes more competitive and premium facilities become more necessary. The message is: You can play with the big dogs if you want, but you should probably stick to low-level fights. If World of Tanks 1.0 is going to bring in new players, not just laps, the message needs to be different.

Despite its eight-year evolution, I still feel the same way about World of Tanks as I did back when I first decided that bashing armored vehicles seemed like a fun way to kill an evening. The big changes are mostly positive, even if not every patch is successful, but Wargaming's flagship is a great game that often gets in its own way. Reaching higher levels should be considered an achievement and source of more exciting battles; It shouldn't leave me thinking about bills and grinding. I prefer to leave it to real life.

judgment

World of Tanks may have a silly name but it does something impressive. It manages to combine pure tank simulation and shooter action to create something that is flawed yet genuinely fun. The time required to research new tanks can be excessive, and elements of chance (including matchmaking) can make games unnecessarily frustrating. The lack of in-game instructions can make even basic mechanics like sight and cover mystifying, but if you can look past the issues, there's a lot to like.