Another massive ♥♥♥♥-up on Gaijin's end, another review for me to update........... fine. I split this Emmy awards-winning review in paragraphs, with each paragraph being dedicated to its own problem. Skip around however you choose

OK, so, they want to introduce an auction. On paper it sounds great, but in practice not. Extremely predatory to rival EA's history of micro-transaction hellscapes and Ubisoft's level of incompetence and greed wombo-combo. It starts off as "oh, we just want to give people the chance to earn exclusive one-time offer decals," to "lol here's [insert blatantly OP Russian prototype]. you didn't get it then? sucks to be you :D"
- Secondly: let me talk about other horrible decisions they have been making. Maps have been getting smaller and smaller with each update, and it has come to the point that unless you're very patient, you will be fiighting in a narrow corridor with no flank routes. New maps (take Attica) don't even HAVE flank routes and old maps are being "reworked"/butchered to make one side blatantly stronger (Tunisia's north side can easily get spawned camped three minutes into a match).
- Thirdly: let me address their very one-sided and backwards logic to monetisation. They continue to give attention only to the three big countries + Sweden. Premiums are usually either side-grades (not a bad thing), or they fall in the "wawzers, it is actually pretty strong" but actively ignoring the same principles for other countries. At the end of 2024, Japan FINALLY received smart ammunition that isn't just the powercrept Maverick, while Russia received a VERY strong platform at a BR it DIDN'T NEED HELP AT and it was given to us as a squadron vehicle i.e. something everyone can easily get. You also have the money makers getting smart ammunition at 9.7, but everyone else a whole BR later. As for GRB: Russia has the only AA capable of countering HALF the threats it faces, in the entire game, with a sort-of-but-not-really close contender being the Ito (Fr*nce and Sweden). The best American AA is the LAV-AD (no radar, ♥♥♥♥♥♥ Stingers); the Germans have the Gepard 1A2; the only good British and Italian SPAAs aren't even British but are actually Russian, and it's the Strela in both cases (both were added only in the latter half of 2024); Israel doesn't even HAVE a top tier AA (the Improved Chapparal sits at 10.0 and it's awful because they've yet to fix the missiles (the upgraded shouldn't have a smoke trail but it does. It's been broken for the whole of 2024 and still isn't fixed), and the 9.3 Machbet (American M163 with Stingers); China is stuck with the Tor-M1; and Japan still doesn't have a radar SPAA. Why? Because Gaijin themselves said they won't be adding multi-part platforms. The Churchill Crocodile was nothing more than a test run for adding trailers and they won't be adding anything else. Japan, a country they've been artificially gimping at every BR in both ground and air, will not receive deeply necessary buffs because they don't want to make a minor nation strong
- Fourth: and on the topic of how everyone gets gimped: let's talk new vehicle additions to the game. For the past two years, Gaijin has been dead-set on spreading as much copy paste as humanly possible. The tech trees of almost all countries are now filled with either Russian or German tanks. Sweden? Their best tanks are Leopards and they have a whole Russian (Finnish) subtree. Italy? Hungarian subtree just added a bucketload of Leopards and cold war era Soviet tanks (ironically enough, best way to play Italy is to not play Italian tanks). Japanese air tree doesn't even have domestically produced jets anymore (it's only the American F-family and Harriers, with the Alpha Jet outliers). The Fr*nch Benelux subtree everyone was hyped for turned out to just be more Leopard and F-series jet family spam. The list continues with almost every TT now just being a complete copy paste dumpster fire.
- Fifth: now, let me explain how they ruined the battle pass. Back in , Gaijin released season 1 of the battle pass and everyone more or less liked the rewards. You could earn up to four vehicles of average-to-good - in one case OP - performance; it persisted for the next four season at which point the rewards became a bit unimaginative or mediocre. Enter season 7: "Armoured Elephant." This is when the rewards dropped down to only three vehicles, out of which one was a reskin and another an American Mustang for Fr*nce. Season 8 came with a boat nobody cared for, a niche German interceptor, and a Soviet prototype (IS-1 but with a 100mm cannon). From season 8 onward to season 15 we received the most bland and unoriginal content; each BP had only one vehicle worth playing for and it usually came with a joy-demolishing grind. Finally, at long last, we reach a new era of BP rewards: season 16 and no now provide us with ONLY TWO VEHICLES, NEITHER OF WHICH ARE GOOD OR UNIQUE, and a trophy case to receive ONE OF FOUR LOW TIER VEHICLES from previous events. Precisely no effort is being put into it. oh and they ruined the other kind of grinding events where you got for stars. rewards are once again either bad or copy paste, and they increased the grind necessary to get them [/b] - Sixth: [/b] their complete and utterly shameful dedication to fixing the game, or better lack thereof. There are bugs that have existed for many years now, yet the developers have still not fixed them. They state they fixed certain bugs and glitches, but how come they get reintroduced the very next patch? They fixed chemical shells to not fuse on contact with shrubbery and such and it held up for a short while, but the bug was quickly brought back in and they have yet to even acknowledge it. Same goes for supposedly fixing trees getting glued to your tank, same goes for APDS constantly shattering, same goes for trees and bamboo having much too big hitboxes, same goes napalm explosions sending tanks flying (though I haven't seen anyone use napalm in GRB for the past month so maybe it was fixed a 2nd time), and the lies they tell go on and on. I don't understand how they can hire people who can't do their job right, then pretend like the very shoddy jobs they do is somehow an exceptional piece of art (not saying I would be any better, but there's definitely people who need to be replaced)
- Seventh: finally, the issue that has plagued this game for most of the its existence: the grind. It is awful in every sense of the word. I've already written a whole best-selling drama fantasy book so I'll keep it short and simple. The grind for researching tanks and their modifications is abysmally slow and painful. The most basic and necessary modifications can be locked behind twenty very good games WITH active premium account benefits - keywords in that sentence are "very good" because it's nigh impossible to get them when you're so woefully underpowered compared to everyone else. Combine that with Gaijin siphoning large quantities of RP (end-of-match results don't match how much you actually received) and you now have to spend a few hours grinding for a single tank just to be somewhat on par with all of your fully modded opponents. Mind you, grinding rank 5+ for someone without an active premium account (me included) is pretty much you cosplaying as Sisyphus; that's to say unbearable and impossible