After 1,000 hours on the game, I have to change my review from a negative to a positive. Despite constant problems, I've developed a love/hate relationship with the game, and I know I'll always come back to it.


War Thunder is a game simulating vehicular combat with vehicles from WW2 up to the late Cold War. The game features planes from six different nations, and tanks from five. There are more nations planned in future updates. The developers are also working on a naval update, which will add destroyers, patrol boats, and general naval combat into the game. I will mainly be reviewing tanks in this review.


I don't play much planes in this game, but the little I have played has been quite satisfactory. I can't speak for issues that would only be uncovered from extended play time, but if you are looking for casual play and authentic WW2 and Korean War planes, this is definitely the game for you. Very realistic details, and an arcade, realistic, and simulator battle choice.


Tank combat is divided into Arcade Battles, Realistic Battles, and Simulator Battles. I mainly play Realistic Battles, and I have played a few Simulator Battles. Keep this in mind. Arcade battles show you where your bullet will land, and indicate if you can penetrate a tank's armor. If you are spotted by an enemy tank, your name will appear in red above your tank for all players to see. I do not prefer this over Realistic, but some players do and it may suit you. As someone who switched over from World of Tanks, this is similar to that, and may be a good starting place for you.

In realistic battles, enemy tanks can only be spotted by a teammate marking them on the map. You must account for bullet drop, and ambushes and hiding are totally possible. The matchmaker also pairs entire nations of tanks together, so you won't be fighting tanks of the same nation. It also attempts to stick to Axis vs. Allies, but sometimes it can't do this due to player counts.

You can also take planes into Realistic battles, and use them to fight other planes, or use them as close air support and kill enemy tanks. This is one of my main problems with this game. As a tank, a plane can and will completely decimate you. It is very difficult to hide from them, and they will one-shot you anywhere, including in your spawn. This would be somewhat acceptable if it were rare, but 50% of my deaths are to planes. You can use your MGs and main gun against planes, but this is extremely hard, and I've personally only been able to do this once. There is SPAA in the game, but planes can still defeat the SPAA, and SPAA take FOREVER to take a plane out of the sky. (Except for radar SPAA, aka godsend) Another problem with the game is spawn camping. Enemies can move into your spawn, and kill you after you spawn. You have 15 seconds of invulnerability after you spawn, but if you move in any way other than pivoting, that disappears. They recently removed the aformentioned feature. You have 0 seconds of invulnerability. If there is more than one enemy in your spawn, you are done for. Some will say this only happens if you're losing, but this is untrue. This happens frequently in early-game and mid-game, as well as late-game. This includes planes making CAS runs into your spawn. These problems make tanks very unenjoyable, and need to be fixed or improved ASAP. If you have a love for tanks like I do, go ahead and give it a try.


Some people like to say this game has a malware. This is UNTRUE. As unhappy as I am with the game at the moment, this is a complete lie. This agent is an autoupdater for the game, and you can disable it in the launch settings.

If you have any questions, I will gladly answer/argue in the comments. Thanks for reading.