[Adster94]

Ever wondered what it would be like to combine both ground and air in an MMO style WWII combat game? Well then, War Thunder is the game for you! War Thunder is a WWII team vs team ground and air game, with large tech trees for every nation within the war – all the ones that mattered anyway, sorry France and Italy.

As there are only two completely different sections within this game, I will start by breaking these down, starting with the first part of War Thunder ever released – Air. The nations that have full aerial trees are as follows: USA, UK, Germany, Russia and Japan; my personal favourite of them all being the UK – surprise, surprise.

There are multiple different types of planes in War Thunder, the first of which is by far the most important: fighters. Fighters, as you are probably aware, are the air-superiority units in War Thunder, which are vital to taking down both enemy fighters and bombers in every air engagement, and thus the most popular planes in Air battles.

There are two types of fighters, standard fighters which have a single propeller, multiple machine guns and some planes – towards the higher tiers – have cannons, examples of these include the popular Spitfire, and the Aircobra; and heavy fighters which are generally less manoeuvrable, more armoured, armed with multiple cannons, and tend to have a gunner, compared to the standard fighter, an example of this fighter is the Beaufighter.

Bombers are the second most important type of plane in War Thunder, as they are vital for taking out ground objectives, which can end battles quicker than relying on the enemy – or your team – running out of planes. These large planes are designed, mostly, for taking out tanks, and structures with multiple bombs, but some of the early bombers have front facing weapons and can double up as fighters – only far less manoeuvrable, and as you might expect: slower.

There are multiple types of bombers: heavy bombers, the standard bombers that have the most bombers, and generally high survivability; dive bombers, that rely on staying at a high altitude and rapidly descending or as the name suggests, diving, to have pinpoint accuracy on ground targets; and finally torpedo bombers, whilst they don’t actually start off with torpedoes, they can be effective bombers, using their speed and fighter manuoverability to stay alive long enough to use their few bombs, as both the dive and torpedo bombers act like fighter/bomber hybrids.

My overall opinion of the aerial combat is very good, it plays fluidly and feels real, even when playing Arcade mode – as there is a different mode, realistic, which is far more realistic (who would have guessed) and feels more like a simulator. My only real issue with it, is it takes forever – unless you have premium, in which case it takes half of forever – to progress up through the tech tree. As you would expect the early tiers is far quicker to progress through, than later tiers so you’d find yourself at tier 2 in no time, but after that it is far slower to progress.

Now onto the second part of War Thunder, and the part which is personally my favourite at the moment – tanks. Similar to air, there are multiple different tanks that are designed for different things, whilst every unit is effective – in some way – against ground units, there is the added variable that every kill rewards you 1 aerial point – that isn’t the technical term, but that is what I’ll call it in the review. There are three planes that you can use in ground battles: fighters, fighter bombers, and medium/heavy bombers, each requiring 1, 2, and 3 aerial points respectively. These add a variation to normal combat, as you only have 2 minutes in a plane, and so can only really get a couple of vital kills, that can help turn the tide of battle, or just earn you extra points depending on which you care about the most.
It is worthy to note that there aren’t as many tech trees for tanks, as it is still in development, the only nations available are as follows: USA, Germany and Russia. It is also important to note, the developer of the game is based in Russia.

There are five different types of vehicles in ground combat: light, medium, and heavy tanks, tank destroyers and mobile AA. Light tanks are small, fast and manoeuvrable tanks designed to scout enemy positions, and quickly grab the first capture in every battle, they can’t take much punishment and most medium / heavy tanks, can take them out in one hit, and have the lightest cannons out of the four tanks. Medium tanks are your bog standard, medium arm, medium cannon tanks, that have the balance of speed, firepower and survivability, thus they are the most popular class of tank.

Heavy tanks, have the most armour, travel the slowest, and wield a slightly larger cannon than medium tanks, and so can deal larger amounts of damage. Tank destroyers tend to sacrifice survivability for high damage, depending on the nation that you play anyway, as American tank destroyers do massive amounts of damage, but are very lightly armoured, whereas most German and Russian tank destroyers are more armoured, that being said the more armoured ones are slower than their American counterparts.

The final type of vehicle is mobile AA, which is specifically designed for taking down aircraft, and thus are lightly armoured, and very fast / manoeuvrable, but they can still be effective against tanks, as they utilise armour piercing rounds, there is always the possibility your cannon may penetrate your foes armour, and knock his or her crew unconscious.

I often tend to compare War Thunder with the Wargaming versions, I.e. World of Tanks, and World of Planes, and now that I have played both extensively I would definitely choose War Thunder any day, as the game feels more realistic, and I personally think have a better damage system. For those who haven’t played the Wargaming games, they focus more on a health system whereas War Thunder focuses on armour, crew and vehicle components. Wargaming do use crew, armour, and the vehicle components, it still relies on health rather than condition of each component.

Overall, I do really like War Thunder, and always find it very enjoyable, except for one minor problem: the Russians are over-powered, both on ground and air. Whenever I play War Thunder, I always find that the Russians are very well armoured, and very heavily armed, thus I feel unless I get lucky, the Russian tanks / planes will win everytime. I do understand that some people may not feel the same, but a lot of people I have played War Thunder with, I know, feel the same – but only you can really make your own judgements.

Now that I have covered the main points about War Thunder, it is now time for the scoring, so here are my scores:
- Aesthetics = 8 – overall the game looks beautiful, especially when the map is filled with tank wrecks, and craters, but most of all the detail on vehicles is exceptional.
- Mechanics = 7 – I find the mechanics are very well balanced between arcade fun and realism, and easy to pick up – definitely the best tank and air WWII game I’ve played.
- Community = 7 – largely I find the community isn’t a bad one, whilst there is always the occasional person who complains, there are very few in War Thunder. People tend to help out where they can too, and sometimes go for the objective
- Enjoyment = 6 – whilst I do thoroughly enjoy the game, in asthetics and mechanics, going against Russian tanks / planes, makes me wonder: why they didn’t steam roll Europe when they had the chance?
- Length = 7 – whilst only multiplayer, it does take a very long time to progress through the tech tree, but there is always plenty of choice and variety for players to go for, and thus makes battles more varied as people use many different tanks / planes.
- Overall = 7 – I really enjoy the game, but the problem that always ruins my enjoyment, is the over-powered feel of everything Russian, otherwise it would receive an 8.

Too Long; Didn’t Read

War Thunder is a WWII themed air, and ground MMO combat game, featured almost every faction within the war. Filled with full tech trees for both air and ground, there is always plenty to aim for and do within the game, and enough to keep any player busy for a long time.

Every nation in the game has a full air tree, with a variety of different types of plane such as: fighters, the main air superiority fighter; heavy fighter, a heavier version of fighters with heavier weaponry and armour; bomber, filled with bombers and focuses on taking out ground objectives to help your team achieve victory faster. I find the gameplay enjoyable, and feels slightly realistic, whilst also quick to pick up mechanics, that are fluid and makes the aerial combat fun.

When it comes to ground, there are only 3 nations: USA, Germany, and Russia, that have full tech trees as the ground part of the game is still in development. There are five types of ground vehicles: light tanks, fast and manevourable scout tanks; medium tanks, that are well balanced between firepower, survivability and speed; heavy tanks, that are focused on survivability and slightly more damage than medium tanks; tank destroyers that sacrifice heavy armour for speed and high damage; and finally mobile AA, purpose built to take out planes, but can also take down tanks – if you’re lucky. Very enjoyable, and realistic ground combat feel, with an ideal damage system for tank combat.

Whilst I have only one main problem with the game, it is large enough that I don’t enjoy long game sessions: Russians seem over-powered, and people know it. Whenever I face off against Russians, as I prefer to be either the Americans or British, I sometimes feel that I am lucky if I come out alive. Overall my score for the game is a 7 out of 10. Definitely worth the time and effort, especially considering its free!

[Sysil]

Another great review Adster!

I played Warthunder for a while, and I agree with your assessment.

[Halfeclipse]

Personally Russian airplanes aren't to much of a problem. They handle fairly well, like to put out fires, but they're mostly the jack of all trades faction. That makes them easy to fly and in turn makes it harder for the average arcade player to suck quite as hard. A fair fight with a russian plane will take work to win but when everyone either has 20 mms with HE ammo or just massive banks of 50 cals a fair fight isn't something you want in the first place.

Tanks on the other hand...

Did they ever fix the whole "turn off scenery" BS going on in ground combat?

[Jake Tyler]

Great review Adster.

I haven't played it in a while, i used to try and play with a Thrustmaster HOTAS set up, but it was a nightmare because they weren't fully supported at the time, the aiming/crosshair wasn't as accurate (it seemed to shake) as the keyboard interface, so always felt second rate.

I may visit it again one day, but, still a great read

[Bar'ol]

When I played this awhile ago it was super fun. Though I got a bit impatient to fly a mustang, lol. I should check this out again

[Halfeclipse]

Dunno when you last played, but now you can pick up the A-36 Apache (basically it's a first production run mustang converted for dive bombing) pretty quickly and you can grab the straight p-51 right out of tier three.