Gather round children, and I shall tell you about... War Thunder.

Once upon a time, there was a flying game. Unlike other flying games of the time, this flying game could actually be played with a mouse and keyboard. The controls were really tight, amazing, even, for those that always wanted to play a flight game without dropping money on a good flight stick. It was a beautiful game, not just visually, but it was amazingly fun. It ran well. Everything could be bought quite cheaply. All in all, it was everything a free to play should be, and there was much rejoicing.

At some point in time, Gaijin decided it wasn't just enough to have a fun game that everyone loved to mess around in. They had to have a meta-game. So they started messing with the flight models in arcade mode, where nobody really wanted realism. They took away the massive bomb-blasts that everyone loved, and made it so you had to hit every ground target dead center with a 250kg bomb or bigger in order to kill it. Maybe people were farming too much. Maybe people ground through the aircraft trees too fast. Nobody knows the reason, but we all know we don't like it.

But they weren't done ruining the fun. They implemented new mechanics in arcade that made it revolve around dive-bombing B-17s that could end the game in the first five minutes. You can't dogfight anymore. You can't. If you do, bombers will end the game before you get more than a handful of kills. They expect you to do nothing but chase bombers that dive as fast as your fighters can, and even if you kill them all, the bombers on your team will probably end the game anyways. Oh boy. It's been like this for six months.

A number of the flight models are broken. They just don't work. Planes are put into the game with flight models that make them virtually unplayable, but players are expected to use them and progress through them to the next plane. The F-82 Twin Mustang, the Mosquito, and a number of other aircraft are just broken. They've been in the game for months, and there is no telling when they're actually going to get fixed. Some of the planes ( Like the XP-38 ) were ones you paid money for, and they were STILL broken. They took money for a plane you could barely fly, and only fixed it around five months after it was put on sale. Good times.

The ground forces is fun, initially, but that wears off quick when you realize it's an alpha masquerading as a beta. Tanks flip over if you take some turns just a little too fast. Some tanks don't have damage models. You can shoot through the ground. You can fall through the ground on some maps. Just straight up 'fall through the earth' clip mode. I feel really bad for the people that paid sixty dollars for a ground forces tank package 6 months ago, because they're going to be waiting another year for a functional game.

The grind at tier 5 becomes some sort of Sisyphean task that no sane person should do. To unlock the first module on a tier 5 jet, you're looking at around 18-24k per module. Without premium game time, you'll make around 2k experience per module. To unlock enough modules to make your plane as good as the people you fight, you're looking at hundreds of thousands of experience points. To unlock new jets, you'll need anywhere between 200-350 thousand experience points, and a 1.5 million credits. This is a lot.

Repairing some planes can cost between 40-80k PER DEATH. This means you can spend months grinding your way to late game planes that you can't even fly because you quite literally can't afford it. Oh, and Korean War era jets end up fighting WW-2 era planes and jets somewhat regularly, so don't go into this hoping for some historic WW-2 jet action. You won't get it.

Gaijin says they want critique, and that they welcome player feedback. They don't. They moderate their forums quite heavily, and delete, lock, and edit every post that critiques the game. Disagree with a moderator about game balance? You might get banned from the forums. It doesn't matter if you're polite or not. It doesn't matter if you're right, or not. All that matters is that you disagreed with Gaijin, and you disagreed with their staff. God help you if you tell a joke.

The Russian devs tell us basically nothing. Half of what we find out comes from players going onto the Russian forums and using Google-translate to figure out what's up or why something's broken. They just don't care about communicating with the Western European and American playerbase at all, or pretty much anyone else, for that matter.

If you play this game, don't put money into it. Just don't. They're killing the playerbase slowly but surely, and the only reason I'm playing ( after putting a few hundred bucks into it ) is because I already have almost all the planes I want. If you play, stick to the early tiers. You can unlock a fair number of early prop planes for free, and the early tiers are the most fun. Just don't be tricked into thinking that early fun is present in the higher tiers.

I bet you're wondering what a person who has this much time spent playing the game is doing by not recommending it. Well, in short, it goes a little like this:

Pre-patch 1.37, the game was making incremental, but still positive steps forward. In general, the game's biggest downfall back then was simply lack of proper flight models for a lot of the aircraft. The economy woes from patch 1.29 had mostly been completely fixed by 1.33-1.35, and the game was just a pleasure to play and I couldn't get enough of it. I even decided to devote my semi-successful YouTube channel completely to War Thunder. A mistake that I'm now regretting.

After patch 1.37, the game simply went to ♥♥♥♥. While the game's flight models are now in probably their best state yet (but still not even anywhere close to perfect), nearly every other aspect of the game is has gotten 10 times worse. The issues that I have with the game in its current state can be a bit hard to count, but I'll give it a try:


Non-existant in-game economy

Nearly impossible grind (mostly the top two tiers, 4 and 5) for both unlocking aircraft/tanks and the aircraft/tank modules. Forget progressing at any decent pace without a premium account, and even with a premium account, tier 5 vehicles are near impossible to upgrade without dumping money into the game. This "grindy" element adds a pay to win mechanic.

Horribly F'd up matchmaker system that is based solely upon player statistics. For a game that prides itself on historical accuracy and authenticity, it's a bit odd to me that it doesn't even take history into account when creating matchups for the vehicles. This in addition to the fact that Gaijin's system also does a horrible job at creating balanced matchups, so we now have a game that's neither historical, nor is it balanced .

A completely broken and unfinished ground forces. It wasn't ready to be released in open beta, and none of the closed beta testers were pushing for a release. Yet they did it anyway, and now we have this broken bug-fest filled with wonky damage models, invisible tanks, tiny maps, and useless terrain.

The horrible damage models is not unique to the tanks. War Thunder now has heavy bombers flying around and taking damage as if they were the Starship Enterprise. Not to mention the flight models of these bombers also resemble the Enterprise as well.

The development team is prioritizing prototype and failure aircraft over some of the real iconic workhorse aircraft of WW2. In addition to this, development has now made it clear that they have plans to add certain paper planes (aka blueprint planes - Stuff that was never even built).

A development team that often lies to their customer base and doesn't take constructive critisism from those customers seriously. They have a very "The customer is always wrong" kind of attitude, one could say.

The community management team in general does a bad job of running the forums. A lot of them are truly passionate about the game and what they do, but they don't understand the roles of a moderator/administrator. Then again, a lot of them are just immature children (some of them literally are children) that will delete your post, put you on a mod queue, or ban you simply because they feel like it.


Alright, I know those last two weren't necessesarily complaints about the actual game, but I still feel like they needed mentioning. The consumer has to know what they're getting into before downloading a game and cetainly before spending money on that game. That being said, I've finally thrown in the towel with this game. I can't recommend playing it in its current state, and I would definitly advise against spending any money on it.

People come for the pretty graphics, but they stay for good gameplay.
As of now, War Thunder only has one of those two. I wish Gaijin luck in the long run, as they'll truly need it.

Thanks for reading.

Welcome to War Thunder where every problem is solved by nerfing the Germans.

Do like having russian potatoes shoved up your anal passage? Then this is a game for you. Overwhelming bias and terr- DO NOT LISTEN TO HIM COMRADE (or go to gulag in sibera)! THIS IS GREATEST GAME TO EVER BLESS EARTH! WATCH AS HAND OF STALIN REACHES DOWN FROM HEAVEN TO GUIDE YOUR SHELL FOR VICTORY! FLY CONCRETE WALLS AND DRIVE BUNKERS IN ORDER TO KILL FACISTS AND AMERICAN PIGS! ARE YOU FACING TROUBLE AT HANDS OF FACIST OPPRESSORS? DO NOT FEAR COMRADE, STALINWOOD WILL NOT BURN! YOU MUST GET THIS GAME FOR GLORY OF MOTHER RUSSIA! (or die at hands of NKVD for crimes against the state)

I was a hardcore fan of this game. Initially when I acquired the hours on this game it was amazing. The aircraft where historically accurate and amazingly detailed. The gameplay was fun and teams were developing nicely. Now it’s a piece of trash. Everything has been nerved except anything Stalin would get sexually aroused by. The gameplay has become so unbalanced that the USSR team win realistic battles 90% of the time!! The combat ratings are so broken my tier 2 FW will be put against tier 4 aircraft which outperform it in every way other than fire power. The game has become unplayable and this is my 2nd and hoefully final rage quit.Finally I will say that this game has great allure, because of the detail and effort Gaijin put into the game. I cannot understand why they are ruining it with stupid issues such as a biased combat rating and buffing a particular team. You want to play as the USSR this game is 10/10. Play as any other team prepare to crash and burn. Enjoy!

Game used to be very fun, but it has turned into a monster grind. As others have stated, I don't mind them encouraging payment, but the prices are too high. I'm just glad I unlocked quite a few planes before it became this grind fest.

I have way more hours than Steam says, simply because I started playing before it was even on Steam. But thats not my point really.
I have probably put a thousand hours and several hundred dollars into this game, and if you had asked me 6 months ago if I recommneded it, I wouldve said yes, all the way. But now, the game is a broken mess that infuriates me more than it entertains me.
Where do I even begin?
Country bias is strong, being a Russian game, the Russian planes are incredibly overpowered, and dont even think about getting within a kilometer of a Russian tank.
The customer support base is terrible. Instead of rolling out tweaks and fixes that players have been asking for for over a year, they simply add more planes to the Russian tree and maybe a few to the others and further mess up the system that is so badly in need of balancing.
To do anything above tier 3 in anything short of a human life time you will need to pay for a premium account, and even then, you better play realistic battles (which in my opinion are not nearly as fun as Arcade), AND EVEN THEN you better have paid $20+ for a Premium Aircraft.
No, this game has just become too much of a "Pay to Win" cash cow for Gaijin, rather than focusing on making it a fun experience for everyone, no matter what country or game type someone wants to play.
I think the best line I've seen that descibes this game now is,
"Grind 'till you die...
or pay up."

*EDIT*

This may be a petty gripe, but I think it sums up how little the developers care about their user base. Most online games give stuff away for the Holiday season, right? Gaijin begs to differ. You can earn 2 very low tier vehicles.... if you complete 19 challanges that are released over 19 days. NINETEEN. And they are shoot down 30 planes in "inset plane here" and destroy 40 tanks in "insert tank here."
Not only are the rewards crap, the amount of work required and amount of time you have to grind is insane. No discounts on the overpriced planes, overpriced premium accounts, or overpriced premium currency have been offered either.
So Gaijin's "Merry Christmas" to their user base is basically a giant, grindy middle finger. A rather apt comparison to what the entire game has become over the last year.

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Click for Gameplay Trailer - Review

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Graphics:
+ detailed airplanes and tanks
+ nice light effects
+ good ground textures
+ realistic clouds and smoke
- pilots look like dolls

Balance:
+ every tank and airplane has pros and cons
+ good balance between air and ground fights
+ tutorial is okay

Sound:
+ authentic sounds
+ atmospheric soundtrack
+ great engine and gun sound
+ voicemail in national language

Control:
+ oculus rift support
+ arcade mode is easy to learn
+ realistic heavy to play
- Unwieldy interface

Game Size:
+ over 300 airplanes and 70 tanks (more come with updates)
+ complexe simulation mode
+ mission editor
+ many maps
+ upgrades for crew, tanks and airplanes
+ arcade, simulation and realistic mode
- some tanks only with real money
- currently only 2 factions with tanks
+/- 60 solo missions (most with dlc)

Game Physics:
+ each airplane and tank feel different
+ g-forces important for air fights
+ environmental effect like wind, clouds and gravity

Teamplay:
+ play in groups and create clans
+ teamplay very important
+ solo action is deadly
+ every vehicle has a individual use

War Thunder is a popular MMO combat game focusing on the world war 2. Fleets on the sea, air to air combat with fighter planes and fierce fighting on the ground involving armored vehicles.
Whether in the sky or on the ground, the 16v16 matches are filled with beautiful vehicle models.

With War Thunders a lot of people will compare this to World of Tanks. Both share the same weapons/vehicles and on some maps have similar objectives, but they are different enough that playing will give two different experiences. World of Tanks is more like a team death match, while War Thunder plays like game of King of the Hill. The most obvious difference is that in World of Tanks you only get one tank per match, while in War Thunder as long as you have spare tanks and crews you can keep respawning. As soon as a player respawns in War Thunder their previous tank disappears. This is really disappointing and breaks the realism of the game having a tank suddenly disappear in front of you. It also means that you can’t use the destroyed tanks as cover.

You start off with a some (reserve) planes from the games five playable nations (US, USSR, Germany, Britain and Japan). Only two nations currently have tanks: Germany and the Soviet Union
There are 3 Modes. Arcade mode, where vehicle damage isn’t as severe and you have unlimited ammo and multiple respawns. The two other modes for the more hardcore gamers. Realism mode increases the difficulty by adding limited ammo and harder damage penalties. Simulation is very hard, where a single mistake can spell doom, and you’re given no extra planes to respawn with. i tried the simulation... i never finished the tutorial...
The control designed around using a mouse. Point an on-screen cursor where you want to go and the plane follows, rather you controlling it directly. That might work okay for a mouse but it’s horribly imprecise for a controller. I just used the mouse to handle tanks and airplanes. Still using this basic keys, its very easy, in the arcade mode...

One of the best features about War Thunder is the upgrade system. Over a hundred planes and tanks are included in the game, but they have to be unlocked by research
Each battle give you XP and Silver Lions, which, alongside research, will allow you to buy new planes/tanks, new modifications and train your crew. Improve your cannons, engines, bullets, crew member skills etc.
Golden Eagles, the in-game currency you purchase with real money allows you to buy months of Premium status which, like many F2P titles, gives you certain bonuses. It also allows you to buy premium vehicles which come pre-packaged with a locked set of modifications. Which is nice if you just want to have something with all the fixings to go into battle with but does not give you any tangible advantage given how many other factors are always at play. The best planes in the game are NOT premium vehicles.
There are lots of “starter packs” which will be very familiar if you’ve played a F2P game in the last years. For a F2P game War Thunder is not in constantly asking for your money. The biggest incentive I found for spending real money revolves around how long you have to !!wait to research!! things.

Crew upgrades are dictated by their role. Operator gunner, tank commander, loader, gunner, and driver. Expanding into these are keen vision, field repair, leadership targeting, machine gun reloading, gun fire, communication, and a short selection more.

You can create your own squadrons and clans with other players, although it be at the cost of Golden Eagles. While Golden Eagles can used for purposes involving the earnings of Silver Lions, it’s best to think of Golden Eagles as the premium account.
The audio is great. Engines rumble, the sound of gunfire is hard and satisfying. Bombs crash into fortified emplacements.
Inspiring music gets you into the game from the first moment. Choral and martial tunes trumpet away as if War Thunder were a epic movie.
The game supports !!purchasable!! single player campaigns complete with WWII-era footage of real battles in the mission briefings. They are a nice change of pace from the multiplayer experience. They serve as a good place to master the basics and enjoy a bit of history. There’s a number of scenarios and dynamic campaigns you can play with your friends.

War Thunder is a WWII simulation that you can lose yourself in intense combat, hundreds of vehicles, casual and challenging difficulty settings and huge upgrade paths. The game is permanent growing. New Airplanes, tanks, maps, modes and the promise of naval forces.
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Only play this game in short bursts. It is fun, but the game is unbalanced and frustrating to play.

I hate to play the same tune as so many others, but unlike them I am taking my review and going a step further.

I'm a lover of history, from as ancient as Mayan and Aztec cultures to as modern as it can get when talking current news. I love to know why things happened, the reasons, the causes, the impacts upon how we see things today, and what it can mean for those who care to enjoy their history.

So, as I write this review, keep the words "Historical", "Accurate", and "Fair" in mind. Cause they'll be mentioned a lot.

Historical planes, tanks and ships, all clashing upon one battlefield that allows players to simultaneous and fairly enjoy how these various war machines of history would have performed under the accurate scrutiny of Gaijin's developers who no doubt have the best interest of this game at heart, right? But what game are we playing, if not War Thunder? A game advertised as historically accurate and fair to all countries in how they are represented historically to players? Knowing they're targetting both a large audience who -wants- a fun combat flight simulator game which boasts accuracy; and simultaneously knowing they're targetting the history buffs and adamant learners who want to gleefully roar through the skies as a P-47 Thunderbolt over 1940's Germany. Surely! They would want to represent the lives lost, the battles won, and the ingenuity of men and women of this war accurately, right?

Now, take every mention of those words I told you to notice before, and answer them with "No". This game was praised as the champion against other games like World of Tanks, where World of Tanks and it's corporate model is to force all players into mediocrity and a 50% win/loss range than to be fair (look up Greedy Goblin's World of Tanks article, then you will agree). Even I came in when War Thunder had almost one-quarter the number of planes is has now, and was boasted as being historically accurate.

Those days are long gone, I've put in well over 300 hours of my life trying to enjoy this game. The only times I authentically enjoyed this game is when I broke down and submitted to the mentality of my close friends who call this game by it's true name: "GLORIOUS SOVIET UNION COMRADE VICTORY SIMULATOR"*. By this, I mean, I started playing nothing but Soviet Russian planes, I watched in initial glee as my scores skyrocketted. I went from being the bottom 5 players to the top 5. Then the horror hit me. I was indoctrinated. I had spent cash to turn around from the planes I -wanted- to -desperately- enjoy, yet I can't due to the GSUCVS* and it's portrayal of Russian warplanes as nigh-unstoppable machines of complete devestation.

I spent cash to enjoy the best of the United States circa 1940's era planes I always wanted to fly; I spent cash and time to work up the German Luftwaffe planes, where I finally hit my peak into indoctrination. That is when I spent cash to play Soviet Russian planes like everyone else, just so my above-average flight skills aren't being held back because a single Russian plane can endure over 1000 rounds of .50 caliber anti-air machinegun fire. So my enjoyment and money spent on my "dud planes" with other factions was turned around and then I learned the "glory" of the GSUCVS*. It's taken me some time, it really has. But I can finally say, without the shadow of any doubt...

This game as made for Russians, by Russians, and most likely at gunpoint by Joseph Stalin himself, or at least by the specter of Stalin. The only hope to redeem this game would be to overhaul it, cut out the busywork of all the "prototype" and "testbed" planes that keep you from enjoying the plane you really want. Cut out the horribly overpowered and unbalaned and unfair Russian cheat engine for Russian planes. And lasty, to apologize to every player for their grievous wounds inflicted upon trying to represent "accurate" history.

Until then, I will not recommend this game unless you understand that it is NOT an accurate game, that it is a game made to pander towards old Soviet diehards who can't see Mother Russia as anything but completely indomitable and constantly producing instant-win scenarios. Play it, but do NOT spend your cash. Play it, but do NOT bother commenting on their EU/USA forums. They will simply mock you with sock puppets while they ban your forum account.

this game... was good. at one point the game was mostly balenced and playable, mostly. it was one of my most loved games and now its just horrible, grindy, repetetive and all round boring gaming experiance, even at low tiers it is obvious what planes dominate the sky *cough* russians *cough* . and you cant really argue with planes such as the Yak 9 T/K exsisting, which have really only been made more overpowered after "nerf". The problem is that it appears that they have made the grind to long to keep interest in playing, and they have made it clear that they have a biased towards planes and nations. i do no t recomend playing this game untill one of either things happen.
1: Matchmaker redesigned
2:they listen to the players who are PLAYING the game and giving CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM to help move the game forward, but i highly doubt that this will happen...

This is an amazing game. Really! You will not find another game similar to this one. It is one based more on skill than anything else. No stupid reaction shots or super quick decision making. With one good shot, someone(Including you) can be killed. If not, it may take minutes to destroy a wing or light them on fire. But, then the downsides come in. Recently, they completely overhalled the matchmaking system. Maybe you've heard. They collapsed the 20 teir system into 5 teirs. And if that weren't bad enough, they changed the way of getting planes as well. Instead of leveling up a teir, which may give you 2-3 planes at once, they made it so that you "research" each plane at a time. This makes it unbelievably grindy. in the end, it seems like a cheap way to get more people to buy in game "golden eagles" to boost research. WIth true FTP, you will be spending hours and hours just to get a planes in low teir. If you love to grind for hours with the same planes and no real sign of progression, this is the perfect game for you. I continue to play just in hopes they change it. But as for 10-19-2014, they haven't.

Update on 12-21-2014
As of the new update...I am speechless. Gaijin realy, really hates this game. They, for some reason, feel so pressured to release American tanks that they have not a care in the world for anything else. They put in an under-teired plane here, another OP plane over there... You get the point. The banshee...No comment. They feel that a plane that has a rediculous energy retention and almost a thousand kph top speed belongs in the lowest teir of jets. Flown correctly(not that hard) a person can defeat a whole team of German jets. The new British jet doesn't even have a finished flight model. And obviously the worst of all, they have delayed the implication of the proposed "fix" to the battle rating system. That would have made the game half decent again...maybe. But it doesn't matter if they keep the current cash cow of a system they currently have. I rarely...RARELY play this game anymore. It just isn't fun. I have tried realistic battles, and those are better, but seeing planes on my team that are 2 teirs under me when playing just... just isn't fair for them. Arcade, which i presume most players will spend most of their time in, just feels like a huge cluster ♥♥♥♥. All in all, I don't recomment even downloading this game at it's current state. Don't fall for the huge money trap that is War Thunder.

This game used to be fun but now i have to fight Canberras introduced in 1954 with my Ki-84 (1944). We don't need new maps, new features, new op planes or useless gamemodes - we need to get rid of the horrible BR system.

Originally came for the great gameplay and amazing graphics, left when the gameplay went south and Gaijin blanket nerfed everything that wasn't made of Stalinwood.

I really enjoyed the game, clocking in countless hours a week, until......research points became a thing....

This game once was a very nice and good developed game, But slowly patch after patch it gets worse and worse, almost reaching WoWP level.
Worse is even that you get banned for speaking out on the forum, guess russians didnt forget the CCCP that quickly, free opinion not allowed.

Its a nice enough game if you start and know a bit about flying. if you dont, leave it be. Low tiers (which dont count as battle rating dictates match making) are hopelessly outclassed by professianal sealclubbers. up to high tiers which are a grindfest which make World of Tanks look like a breeze in the park...
see for yourself and you probably quit after a couple of weeks...

By now most of the reviews at the Store Page of this game are negative, this alone probably communicates what the community feels accurately enough. However most of the highest voted reviews were written as an outrage towards a previous patch which had changed the unlocking method for new vehicles in game. This review will hopefully touch on a different more important issue with this game.

I have played and enjoyed War-thunder for more than a year now, but stopped a while a back due to bad design decisions and overall negative behaviour from the devs. I still followed the forums and various communities however in the hopes that things might get better. At it's core it is truly an incredible game. Even with many difficult issues with the developers, I still find myself missing the thrill of flying or driving well rendered WWII machines.

The most glaring flaw with this could-be-incredible game is the crew behind it. On multiple occasions the team behind the game have shown that they do not respect their player base, ridiculing and mocking them at every opportunity.

Recently after more than two years of outcry and demands from the players, the devs finally agreed to implement a 'Player Council' type of system, we have seen such initiatives from other devs in other games so this was a welcome change. However soon it became apparent that this was yet another PR move that ultimately ended up with an arrogant fit towards the players.

The community council representative that would have been chosen by the community is required (by the devs) to play the game at minium consecutively for 90 days, every day (rumours of 7 hours per week requirement) to simply keep his position. The unacceptable demands and restrictions had began. Also as a response for the currently broken system of balancing vehicles a community manager argued (with terrible unintelligible English I might add) that the community council representative can not simply relay problems of the players, no that's not enough, instead what he has to do is to provide thousand page analysis for all the 350+ Planes in the game and their real life performance to the devs FREE OF CHARGE.

That's right, the developer expects a member of the community to do their job for them free of charge to be able to simply PROPOSE changes to the inherently deeply flawed balancing system. After all that work and effort the devs reserve the right to simply ignore the proposed changes (which is their default behaviour by now)

It is easy to see past their deception. They simply answer like a bully to challenge the community to come up with a better system. “Read more then come back” Funnily enough people did write long essays about certain planes being unrealistic in game, providing photographic evidence. They got mocked in their own threads which then got locked and deleted when they started to be posted around. Devs lock and delete any and all criticism from their forums to provide a 'perfect' atmosphere for new comers, instead of working on the issues that are present in this 'Open Beta' game.

Another salt in the wound is that whenever a huge issues comes up and draws backlash from the players, everyone that complains gets the rough treatment, for months they are mocked and insulted by the team only for them to implement a change in line with the complaints months after, with the undertone that they came up with the idea themselves, or did it out of the kindness of their hearths.

This show of arrogance bordering insulting behaviour is common place today with this game. So as much as I like what the core game represents in terms of potential, such scummy behaviour is unacceptable. As a long time fan of this game (one that was waiting impatiently for the Navy side) and as a customer that spent money on this game; I hope this game fails, not out of spite but to demolish such a negative possible influence on future developers. No matter how good your game is, or how entitled the devs see themselves, it is completely unacceptable to insult, mock and belittle dedicated fans.

Thank you for reading.

War Thunder is a game that really breaks my heart, because it could have been a fantastic game. In my opinion, War Thunder is a textbook example of a great concept being very poorly executed.

Who doesn't like the idea of fighting against other players using WW2 tanks and aircraft? This concept is excellent, but the game executes this concept terribly. The game's potential is ruined by unrealistic and inaccurate flight models, awful damage models, game mechanics that are generally deplorable, and by the endless grind that constitutes the game's leveling system, to name a few issues.

My biggest problem with this game is the aircraft that are included. Some types of aircraft are only represented by one or two variants, while other types have six or eight variants included. Also, it is common for included variants of the same aircraft to have virtually identical statistics. Making matters worse, the devs seem to be working to include obscure prototype planes from the WW2 era, instead of properly focusing on the various iconic aircraft of WW2.

The ground vehicle portion of the game is even worse. Tank battles take forever to finish, due to the extreme difficulty of aiming in the right spot to penetrate the armour of an enemy tank. Even if the crosshair indicates that you will penetrate the armour of an enemy tank, you probably won't. This isn't helped by the laughably unbalanced matchmaking system, which is especially bad in tank battles. I went into battle equipped with the tiny Panzer II, and encountered enemy players that were equipped with King Tigers...

The devs for this game are, in a word, despicable. In all my time being involved with this game, I have yet to hear anything good about the Russian developers, Gaijin. They may claim to be open to player feedback, but for the most part they don't really care what the players have to say, and will constantly delete, block, or censor any forum posts that speak negatively about the game. Also, the game itself is very biased in favor of Russian vehicles. Overall, Gaijin has proven consistently that they lack integrity, and that they don't really care about the quality of this game.

Do not play War Thunder. It may look great on the outside, but it's a horrible failure on the inside.

Just flying in my spitfire on a lovely sunny day prepared for war but then when I spotted a enemny plane guess what i found a yak-7.What happend to me when i spotted this Russian plane?I immediatly got shot down why?BECAUSE THE ♥♥♥♥ING RUSSIANS ARE TO OP THEIR ♥♥♥♥ING EVERYWHERE GOD SAVE ME D:

Originally, a pretty great game. Unfortunatlly, ground forces is clunky, glitchy, and broken. The developer is comptuous and abusive of it's playerbase, and has refused to address multiple gameplay issues that have existed for several patches.