War Thunder

Steam Reviews

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• Not recommended Posted April 28, 2026 on Steam Just dont, your life is more worth it friend. War Thunder used to be something special. It had a unique mix of realism and accessibility, and for a while it genuinely felt rewarding to play. That version of the game is long gone. What you have now is a system built around frustration. The progression is painfully slow unless you pay. Not just slow in a “long-term goal” sense, but deliberately dragged out to the point where it stops being enjoyable. Every part of the economy feels tuned to push you toward premium time or vehicles. Without them, you’re constantly fighting repair costs, low rewards, and a grind that feels more like a second job than a game. Balance is another ongoing issue. Certain nations and vehicles repeatedly arrive overtuned, dominate for a while, and only get adjusted after they’ve already done their job. Whether intentional or not, it creates a pattern where gameplay feels inconsistent and, at times, outright unfair. Mechanics like damage modeling and survivability don’t always behave in a predictable or transparent way, which just adds to the frustration. Map design doesn’t help either. Too many matches turn into one-sided stomps, with spawn camping being a regular occurrence rather than an exception. Instead of tactical gameplay, you often end up in chaotic situations where the outcome is decided far too early, the maps are basically csgo, call of duty 360 no-scoping gameplay, not made for this type of realistic game war thunder trying to be, map design is non existenting. Content updates also tend to favor the same few nations, while others are left behind or receive less meaningful additions. If you’re not playing one of the “main” factions, you’ll feel it. What really pushes it over the edge is the overall direction of the game. It doesn’t feel like it’s being developed with players in mind anymore. Feedback rarely seems to matter until there’s major backlash, and even then, changes often come only after things have already gone too far. The frustrating part is that the core of the game is still good. There are moments where everything works, and you’re reminded why you started playing in the first place. But those moments are getting harder to find under all the grind, monetization, and questionable design choices. Unless you’re fully prepared for a long, repetitive grind or spending a significant amount of money, it’s hard to recommend getting into this now. It’s not that the game couldn’t be great again. It's that it clearly isn't trying to be.
• Not recommended Posted October 21, 2025 on Steam Has the potential to be one of the greatest games of all time but it is ruined by Biblical levels of greed and it's showing less and less signs of improvement with each update. As someone with thousands of hours both on steam and on the game's own launcher, I wholeheartedly urge you to not play this game if you are considering downloading it. Gaijin does not care for you, they don't care for their game, they lie, they treat you like a fool and all they care about is your money and they feed you the bare minimum to keep you engaged so that you keep spending more. Half of the content of the updates for the past 2 years are vehicles locked behind a paywall with the price tag of a full AAA game per vehicle or they're vehicles that are behind a 3 month minimum hard-locked grind that involves your own activity as well as your fellow squadron (clan) members, however you can simply skip the whole ordeal by forking over real money and you get no benefits like the aforementioned premium vehicles, for roughly the same price, and the vehicle you purchased also comes stock and you have to grind the modules anyway. Your good performance in a match is not rewarded as your XP is heavily reliant on the length of a match. For example a match where you went crazy and got 12 kills in ground battles, a zone capture and you dropped a nuke without dying and ended the match in 5 minutes, will give you less XP than a match where you died 5 times, got 5-6 kills but it lasted over 20 minutes. The game's progression is heavily built around the monetization, the subscription system that flat out increases your rewards as well as the premium vehicles, that in a lot of cases are better than their free counterparts, also do the same. Premium vehicles that go all the way to the highest tier, spitting on the effort and time you put in to grind to that top. Why would you spend months or for some people years grinding for that F-15, F-18, Abrams, Challenger, T-80 etc. when you can just fork over 70 euros and get it instantly? Gaijin loves advertising their game as realistic which is completely false and countless vehicle characteristics are wrong, some more egregious than others, and whether something will be made to be accurate to what it is in real life is dependent solely if they agree with it or not. You could present the most accurate, unclassified information from the literal manufacturers, government, crews, whatever, but if they do not like it, they will not implement it, state that your source is not good enough or they don't think it's that way as the info states. The maps are horrible, the game modes outdated and not given attention, the balancing atrocious with vehicles artificially nerfed or buffed, updates will take 3 weeks of test server and still go live completely broken with game breaking bugs or performance issues, some issues never getting fixed or reappearing an update later. In every regard but the core gameplay and feel, it is a complete failure of a product. Save your money, save your time. Indie games are on the rise and there are products far more deserving of your attention, than this money trap of a grindy game. It is never going to get better and be what it could, it is only going to get worse and the only reason it still holds as many players as it does, is because it holds a monopoly over this genre and no other game competes with it, there is no alternative. The day we do get one, if ever, this game is going to fall off. In this final segment I want to state that I write this review because I hold...held, a lot of passion for this game, it is a big part of my life and I've met some of the greatest people I know through it. The game's state is incredibly frustrating but at some point you have to face reality and it is time to move on, it's never going to improve. Thank you for your time reading and I hope you'll find something else that'll intrigue you. Peace.
• Recommended Posted September 21, 2025 on Steam If I ever open up a rehab clinic, it won't be for drug addicts, it'll be for people who keep coming back to this game.
• Not recommended Posted January 26, 2026 on Steam More than 5100 hours in this game, I've had a lot of fun, I've met wonderful people, but I can't hold it anymore. This starts with a series of vehicles that started to get too good while Gaijin did nothing, especially the following ones: -BMPT (11.3 Russia): It is the king of volumetric; it is almost impossible to one-shot in an average situation. Shells such as the M829A2 (the third most powerful round in-game) just bounce off its side, and when they do penetrate, they either damage some crew members or just disappear into some fuel tank/internal module. I don't face this problem that often because the nation I play the most is Russia, but when I want to play Al-Khalid-I (China 11.7), Type 90 (Japan 11.7), or M1A1+F-111F (11.7-USA), it just gets unplayable. Let me tell you, this type of vehicle is in all BRs. -Flakpanzer 341 (7.0 Germany): This is some kind of lower BR BMPT, but with even better firepower. Its 37mm gun gets an APHE that can punch through the front of anything while even one-shotting sometimes. People don't talk much about it because it is very rare to find since it was removed in 2019, but this does not mean it isn't the best vehicle in that BR bracket by far. -SAV 20.12.48 (3.7 Sweden): This tank can kill anything in one shot while having one of the best reloads in the entire game (1.2 seconds), in addition to the amazing mobility it has. Competently played, this vehicle can sweep through entire teams, especially when the person using it is an experienced player. Thankfully it is not hard to kill, but it's still extremely overpowered for its BR. -T58 (USA 8.3): This is what happens when you combine the firepower of the SAV 20.12.48, plus the survivability of the BMPT, plus 155mm HESH rounds. You get a very tough vehicle that can one-shot almost anything; this is combined with a 2.6-second reload that makes this vehicle capable of dealing with almost any situation with no skill required. Air also suffers from a lot of issues. Sadly, I don't play this mode as much as ground, so I won't say much about it, but I've heard about problems with bombers and the battle missions themselves, as well as top-tier balance. I'll put some of my opinions below: -BR bracket 11.0-12.0: In this bracket you get 20x20km maps, and that's the range of some SPAAs such as the Pantsir S1. This forces you to play close to the ground, as the main tactic to defeat these types of vehicles is playing at a safe distance, which does not exist in these kinds of missions. I have suffered this a lot in the F-111F and on the F-5E FCU. -Helicopters: I love playing these; I have all the Russian helicopters and I'm going for the AH-64E and the Z-10ME, but playing against them is a completely different situation. A helicopter should be able to multipath very efficiently, but the thing is that they can defeat all types of missiles (except for the optically guided ones), even the ones that have Data Link (DL). This creates many situations where the only thing you can do is just intercept their munitions and wait until either a plane kills them or you run out of ammo and they kill you. I could be talking about all the bad things in this game for hours, and I'm not going to stop playing this game because of Gaijin's issues, but you must know I'm writing this review for 3 types of people: If you haven't played the game or you have less than 150-200 hours: Don't give a cent to Gaijin; they do not deserve it in the current situation. If you have already played the game for some time (maybe less than 500 hours): I think you share some of these opinions with me and I invite you to publish your review and lay your stone in the way. That way we may be able to make Gaijin change, just as we did in 2023. If you are level 100 and you have +1000 hours: You know what the current situation is all about. Once more, I invite you to publish your review like mine to express your opinion about the current state of the game. You have experienced a lot of issues, even more than the ones I've had to face, so please help this cause so one day Gaijin may change. These are not all the issues that I've faced in this game, but in this review I want to leave an idea: an idea of how, as time passes, Gaijin cares less about the players. I know that their first priority is to get money, but can we get a balance point between us and Gaijin? Is Gaijin really going to step on the community they have created just for some bucks? That's all I have to say. Good morning and have a good day.
• Not recommended Posted June 19, 2025 on Steam If you want to know what an abusive, gaslighting relationship feels like, play this game.
• Not recommended Posted April 1, 2026 on Steam [h1]Strong base, impressive scope, flawed development cycle.[/h1] While War Thunder is a unique "all-in-one" experience where player-controlled vehicles can engage each other in combined arms battles on the Ground, Air and Sea; there are many flaws with their implementation and game design decisions that push away both new and old players. [b][u]You may find enjoyment out of this game if:[/u][/b] [list] [*]You have an interest in military vehicles and their history; [*]You are prepared to do your own research on game mechanics and effective tactics; [*]You are not afraid of committing long-term to the game's progression; [*]You have a level-headed attitude when it comes to the inherently unfair nature of combined arms combat and non-skill-based Player-versus-Player environments. [/list] Naturally, having a friend or two to play with or even teach you is going to be a great boost. The review will provide a general outline of the many flaws War Thunder possesses and the highlights that keep players like me in this love-hate relationship. [h3]TABLE OF CONTENTS:[/h3] > [b]DEVELOPER CONTEXT,[/b] and why the game is in a weird state. > [b]PROGRESSION HELL,[/b] and why the grind never ends. > [b]NEW PLAYER EXPERIENCE,[/b] read this if you actually decide to play. > [b]HAVING FUN?[/b] In War Thunder? There are ways to do so. [h2]--------------------------------[/h2] [h2]THE DEVELOPER CONTEXT[/h2] [h2]--------------------------------[/h2] For starters, a lot of the problems with the game come down to the developers being focused on the cash flow. [u]Unless a feature brings in monetary value, the developers are unlikely to work on it.[/u] This is why you will find certain areas of the game neglected, overperforming "premium" vehicles, stagnant game modes and bugs that remain unfixed for years. Speaking of bugs, the game is built on a 13-year-old engine that has grown so much beyond its original scope that it is now practically spaghetti code where each new mechanic or change can cause game-breaking bugs. You can expect every major update to bring a lot of instability that will require multiple patches to fix. [h2]--------------------------------[/h2] [h2]PROGRESSION HELL[/h2] [h2]--------------------------------[/h2] While an argument can be made that "Pay-2-Win" isn't as rampant in the game because of the realistic mechanics at play, [u]the game is most certainly built around the "Pay-2-Progress" model.[/u] There may be more than 2000 vehicles available to play but a lot of them are locked behind literal years of playtime unless you're willing to fork up a good chunk of cash to unlock premium time or premium vehicles (some of these packs can go up to 70 USD!) For perspective, I only have a total of 10 days of premium time to my name, with one "middle rank" premium vehicle gifted to me by a friend. At the time of writing this review I have 1207 hours of playtime [spoiler](having started actively playing in May 2025)[/spoiler] and only made it roughly halfway through my "main" tech tree in Ground, Air and Sea. That said, to avoid burnout I like to invest some playtime in other tech trees and... play other games. It may not be noticeable at earlier ranks, but the research and purchase costs grow exponentially the higher you go. A casual player may expect to play with all of the iconic WW2 vehicles in about a year of playtime without a Premium account, but anything higher than that, especially modern equipment, will take double or triple that amount of time to unlock. [b]Planning out your future line-ups and research progression is paramount.[/b] [h2]--------------------------------[/h2] [h2]NEW PLAYER EXPERIENCE[/h2] [h2]--------------------------------[/h2] There is minimal guidance for new players in this game. There are a couple of tutorials tucked away in the menu at the top left, but these explain the very basics of controls for vehicles (Naval tutorials are completely unhelpful though). If you want to actually be an effective player that knows how to win engagements, understands a vehicle's strengths and weaknesses, and can navigate the battlefield situation: [u]you will need to do a significant amount of research on your own[/u] whether through videos on the internet or forum discussions. It's not just game mechanics and vehicle handling, but also key bindings and settings that will separate the bad players from good players, and most of that knowledge is not relayed to a newbie. [h2]--------------------------------[/h2] [h2]HAVING FUN?[/h2] [h2]--------------------------------[/h2] So many problems, why do we still play? As stated at the very beginning, it is a unique game when it comes to the scope and vehicles present in it that cater to a variety of playstyles. Not to mention, the closest and most tense of battles are the highlights of War Thunder for sure. You can prove yourself with positioning and awareness on the ground, mastery of dogfighting in air-to-air battles, or multitasking prowess in the seas. While Realistic is the "main" mode for the game, there are also options to play Arcade and Simulator battles that offer vastly different experiences with the same vehicles. It is especially enjoyable when you dabble in the world of custom content. There is decent* mod support for War Thunder which allows you to tailor the game to your preferences. Custom music, sounds, vehicle liveries and battle scenarios are the hidden source of entertainment in this game. [b]Most importantly, take it easy![/b] A lot of players fall into the "grind" trap where they focus on just getting through the tech tree or getting the current "FOMO" flavour of the month: they miss out on the fun they could have with their current vehicles or trying out unorthodox non-META tactics, and get easily tilted by losses and when other nations' players get new vehicles or buffs. Yes, it does get that petty. Try to take other players' opinions and comments with a grain of salt. And don't pay attention to the occassional low-skilled player getting angry at their allies or even teamkilling them. Don't forget this isn't the only military vehicle game on the market! Players often mope about not having good alternatives, but there is a lot of independent projects out there that will bring you a lot more bang for your buck. Explore around, and don't feel pressured to enjoy War Thunder just because it's free and multiplayer! [spoiler]Unless it's for your homies who play this game you know you gotta help them out in their dire situation[/spoiler]