Tank MMO? You must be kidding. That’s what came to our mind the very first time we heard of World of Tanks. But the whole idea and the main concept were too tempting, so after receiving an invite for the Russian closed beta, we went for our first panzer ride.

First Steps

The game itself is pretty simple. After launching the client, you get into your personal garage where you meet your first tanks. These are Leichttraktor for Germany and MS-1 for the Soviet Union. You can hardly call them tanks, to be honest. They are so small and cute that you want to bring them home and invite to dinner. But instead, you’ll have to bring one of them to your first battle.

This battle will not last long, because your tank will be too weak and vulnerable, but at the end of every fight you will be getting valuable experience that you can spend on discovering new elements of your tank (which are chassis, engines, turrets, guns and radio) and earning credits which you can spend on buying these elements.

And here is the trick of the development system. Every nation you play for has its own fleet of tanks (60 models for a nation) that were designed and produced between 30’s and 60’s of the XX century. The vehicles are combined in global development trees. And once you’ve installed a detail on your tank that was also used for a tank model of a higher level, this tank becomes available for researching in the tank tree. You research that tank, buy it for credits, and voila — the brand new tank is at your disposal in the garage.

Vehicles Classification

World of Tanks is not just about tanks. There are other types of armored vehicles and every type its own gameplay. Here’s a brief classification of vehicles in World of Tanks. Every class has its own strong and weak points, and gamers have a chance to decide which development path to choose.

Light Tanks

Light tanks are indispensible scouting units that can easily find and engage enemy long-range artillery. Their high mobility allows light tanks to reveal hostile units on the battlefield and transfer their coordinates to teammates. Besides, they can destroy enemy long-range artillery right at the beginning of a battle.

Medium Tanks

Medium tanks compile the core of a team’s attacking force. They are universal soldiers capable of dealing with both light and heavy tanks. Rushing breakthroughs and sudden flanking attacks are their main objective.

Heavy Tanks

These are the “gods of war”. Heavy-armored and low-speed killing machines with powerful cannons, they are the most fearsome units on the map. It will cost at least several light and medium tanks to destroy a heavy tank, not mentioning the super-heavy titans like Maus and IS-7 that can destroy a half of an enemy team all by themselves.

Tank Destroyers

Tank destroyers are perfect defensive units. With powerful weapons and thick frontal armor, they are capable of engaging enemy vehicles from relatively long distances. But their weak points are the low mobility and the deficit of side and rear armor; if a maneuverable opponent makes it to get into a close combat, it all can get really tough for a tank destroyer.

Self-Propelled Howtzers

The role of self-propelled howitzers is slightly different. They work in tense cooperation with light tanks that scout the map and unveil enemy vehicles for them. Their extremely powerful cannons may cause a one-shot lethal outcome for any opponent. Still, howitzers are very vulnerable in close battle.

Gameplay

All battles unfold on seven different maps, with randomly picked teams consisting of 15 people each. It may seem not enough for a decent fight, but the variety of landscapes leads to multiple options for choosing unique strategy and tactics for every battle. It usually takes 5 to 15 minutes to finish a battle, and during this time you can experience a vast range of totally conflicting emotions from joy of taking down a King Tiger to disappointment from getting killed out of nowhere by an enemy SPG.

Fights are so dynamic in fact that you have no time to enjoy the picturesque landscapes that the game’s maps have to offer. Whether it is a German town, fields of Eastern Europe, a small Alpine settlement or the legendary Prokhorovka, all maps are drawn and textured remarkably good. As for tank models, they are something the developers can be proud of. All tanks are designed from real-life models and blueprints and are perfectly detailed.

Controls that you use in the game are as simple as you can get. You use WASD for moving and mouse for rotating the turret (if you’re not playing for an SPG or a tank destroyer). The main playing mode is the third person view, but you can switch to the “sniper” mode and the game will turn into a FPS right away.

Verdict

Before playing the game, we thought that World of Tanks would be a “niche project” aimed at fans of WWII machinery. But after many hours spent in front of our displays killing tanks and getting new upgrades, we figured out that this game is highly addictive and will be loved by masses. The gameplay is almost perfect in terms of game balance, realism and dynamics, and we are just talking about the Russian closed beta that still doesn’t include Clan Wars, Tournaments, Historic Campaigns and other features, which will be added to the game at its release.

We’ll be definitely waiting for the release to try the ready-to-go version. As for now, we’ve already signed up for the global closed beta test which will begin on 8 July.