War Thunder is a free to play military aviation and ground force battle experience from Gaijin Entertainment, a vehicle shooter simulator where players can fight across multiple game modes and maps in hundreds of different WW2 vehicles. We’re throwing the game over to our resident community members for our F2Peer Review to see what they think about the game.

• JimSlam - War Thunder is fun, requires a pretty high skill level (which in general I like) and does really well at adding the level of realism to a shooter MMO that often feels like a simulator. It gets compared to World of Tanks and World of Warplanes a lot, but really the games are all completely different; that said whilst I like that War Thunder implements both land and air combat in the same game, I am more of a fan of the arcade style of the “World of” games and the quicker match times.


• IAMJohn - I really enjoyed War Thunder, in general I don’t play that many shooter games so have never really given it much notice, however I love flight simulators and so I was surprisingly into the game. Admittedly I spent more time just flying around, practicing my landing and take offs, buzzing buildings and just enjoying the sights. The combat was very fun though, but a little difficult to start with given the relatively realistic mechanics, the damage physics were really impressive and far beyond what I was expecting. I don’t think I could commit the amount of time needed to progress in the game, but it’s definitely fun to pick up and play once in a while.


• Kittypride - Not my kind of game but it’s impressive as to how many planes, I believe they hold like a Guinness World Record for the number of unique aircraft in a game, which is pretty cool and testament to just how many you can get. I found it relatively easy to get quite a few of the tier 1 planes and some tier 2s, but it seems like the grind to get tier 3 and above is quite extensive. Customization was very cool and, as I’m quite arty, I actually tried out making my own skin! It looked dreadful… haha!


• Ballgon - War Thunder is a game that does a great job at striving to be realistic. By realistic we mean having some nations’ planes and ground vehicles deliberately far weaker than other because they WERE weaker in WW2 (apart from Russia who could have singlehandedly won the war if War Thunder is anything to go by with its Russian Bias). What else is realistic is the different skill level of soldiers, pilots and drivers in WW2, conveniently made realistic by the absolutely terrible matchmaking system, so thumbs up again Gaijin for the realism.


• Tenebrae - War Thunder isn’t really for me and I avoided the ground tank combat like the plague, the airplane battles at least seemed more unique and potentially fun, but I found flying very difficult, at least flying them well! I did actually play with a friend and we grouped together, so it wasn’t all bad, and definitely feels a lot more immersive when you have someone to plan with and focus the same targets over TeamSpeak.


• Elijah - If you have the time to commit, then War Thunder is a really great game as it gets better as you get better. There can be a quite steep learning curve for new players as the mechanics and realistic damage model can be quite unforgiving, having to protect all areas of your vehicle so that engines aren’t set on fire or wings sheared off from a gunfire strafe is always fun. Even as someone who has played it quite a lot, there are times where I find the damage a little too unforgiving and there’s a variety of vehicles that can potentially one shot an opponent (which makes a short game a relatively disappointing game).


• Your_Nemesis - I do love a good WW2 game, whether shooter or RTS, from Call of Duty, Commandos to World of Tanks and War Thunder. They all bring something completely new to the table, and War Thunder did it in spades. I really enjoy the aerial combat elements of the game, but I’m always drawn to the tanks and I have to say they did a great job of combining the air v air, ground v ground and ground v air battles to create a balance that isn’t completely obvious. I’ve still not played game as much as I would have liked, and at times it is easy to think “this game is so imbalanced”, but by sticking with it things do fall into place, however playing casually it can take a while to get the vehicles you want if you don’t want to stump up cash.

So that’s what our players think, but what about you? Do you play War Thunder? If not then why not? What do you like or hate about it, and what do you think about our players’ opinions? Let us know in the comments!

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This entry was posted on Thursday, November 12th, 2015 at 10:13 am and is filed under Articles, MMO News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.