World of Tanks

World of Tanks (WoT) is a massively multiplayer online game developed by Belarusian company Wargaming, featuring mid-20th century (1930s–1960s) era combat vehicles. It is built upon a freemium business model where the game is free-to-play, but participants also have the option of paying a fee for use of "premium" features. The focus is on player vs. player gameplay with each player controlling an armored vehicle, which may be a light, medium or heavy tank, tank destroyer, or self-propelled gun. World of Tanks debuted as an eSports game at the World Cyber Games 2012.

World of Tanks has been ported to multiple gaming consoles. An Xbox 360 version was developed by Wargaming West studio, called World of Tanks: Xbox 360 Edition. Xbox 360 players use separate servers to those playing the Windows version, and players of each version have separate accounts. The PlayStation 4 version was released in 2016. World of Tanks has also recently expanded to mobile platforms under the name World of Tanks Blitz, in addition to a board game titled World of Tanks Rush and a collectable card game titled World of Tanks: Generals.

As of December 2013, the game has 75,000,000 registered players worldwide and a 1.1 million peak concurrent players. This is an increase of 15 million over the 60 million in June 2013 and 30 million over the 45 million in December 2012.

Gameplay
The player takes control of a single armored vehicle of their choice, and is placed into a battle on a random map. The player has control over the vehicle's movement, firing, and can communicate with allied players through typed or voice chat. A simple random match is won either by destroying all vehicles on the opposing team or capturing the opposing team's base. There are other game modes that change the rules of the battle, but gameplay mechanics remain the same. World of Tanks contains multiple game mechanics such as camouflage, shell ricochets, and module damage.

Game modes
The players in World of Tanks can choose six primary types of battles: random battles, team-training battles, tank-company battles, team battles, stronghold battles and special battles. "Historical Battle" and "Rampage" are former options but have since been taken down for improvement upon its poor reception following its release. Within random battles, players can also participate in platoons, groups of two to three players who are put into the same team. There are also missions to be completed in the game modes for varying amounts of rewards.

Vehicle types
The vehicles are modeled to closely resemble their counterparts in real life, however certain parameters have been simplified or modified to fit game mechanics, and better gameplay.

World of Tanks has five different types of vehicles: light tanks, medium tanks, heavy tanks, tank destroyers, and self-propelled guns. Each nation has at least one line of vehicles starting at tier I to tier X, players progress by playing games in vehicles in that line.

Clan Wars
Clan Wars in World of Tanks has two main components: Strongholds and the Global Map.

Strongholds
Each clan can have their own stronghold, if the clan's commander wishes to construct one. Each stronghold begins with one zone and can grow up to four zones as the clan's membership increases.

Many different types of structures exist, however only one of each can be built. Some structures generate (by consuming industrial resource) special missions or reserves that can be used to temporarily boost clan members experience or credits, or enable artillery or airstrikes during a battle for stronghold. In order to build structures industrial resource is required, which can be won by attacking another stronghold or through skirmishes.

Global Map
The Global Map is a collection of fronts on a map based off the real-world map. There are three fronts for tier 6, 8, and 10. Each front has provinces which generate gold for whichever clan that currently owns it. A clan may enter the global map by entering a tournament for a specific province, facing other clans and ultimately the current land owner.

Customization
All vehicles can be customized to a certain degree, either visually or in terms of performance, with the majority of parts (such as tracks, guns, turrets, and engines) being modular parts purchased from the game's Tech tree.

Various two-tone and three-tone camouflage schemes are available for all tanks as well, including both historically accurate patterns and game-specific, custom variants. Camouflage is available for temporary use by paying with freely earned in-game credits, or for permanent use by paying with gold purchased in the World of Tanks store or won in an in-game event. Players can apply national flags, pre-designed slogans, and camouflage (that will increase the chance of remaining undetected).

All vehicles can mount three pieces of additional equipment, which varies from vehicle to vehicle, and offers various advantages. Some equipment allow the gun to fire faster, some increase the durability of certain parts of the vehicle, and some help keep the vehicle hidden while stationary.

Each vehicle can carry three consumables. Examples of these include repair kits, medical kits, and extra rations that boost the tank's crew for the duration of a single battle.

Development
The developers thought of the concept of World of Tanks in December 2008. The game was officially announced by Wargaming on 24 April 2009. Developers claim that the game budget was the largest ever in the game industry of CIS,

The open beta of the English version of the game was launched on 27 January 2011; the official release was scheduled for 12 April 2011.

The World of Tanks pre-orders were scheduled to be available for the American and European clusters before the game release. World of Tanks was released on 12 April 2011 in Europe and North America.

The game was localised into the Japanese language within the Asia server on 5 September 2013. The Japanese version has collaboration events related to the tank-battle anime series Girls und Panzer. Additionally, six voice packs featuring the characters from the anime as well as an expansion pack changing the tanks look were released. In addition, the Vietnamese server was shut down and merged into the Asia server during 2014. As of June 2017, Wargaming released two premium tanks, based from the anime series Valkyria Chronicles on the East Asia server.

In April 2016, Wargaming announced that a comic book based on the World of Tanks universe is in development. Titled World of Tanks: Roll Out, the five-issue series is being written by Garth Ennis and Carlos Ezquerra, and is set to be published by Dark Horse Comics.

On August 2017, Wargaming and World of Tanks announced a collaboration with the Swedish metal band Sabaton, shooting a World of Tanks drive-style video for Sabaton’s song Primo Victoria, and adding a tank named the "Primo Victoria" based on the Swedish Strv 81 to the game, featuring the Sabaton logo, with its crew featuring the visual likeness of Sabaton members, and lead singer Joakim Brodén voicing the captain of the tank.

World of Tanks Blitz
In May 2013, Wargaming announced World of Tanks Blitz, a mobile version of World of Tanks for tablets and smartphones using Windows 10, Android and iOS. The game allows 7v7 battles, as compared to the 15v15 battles on PC. The Closed Beta Test (CBT) started on 19 March, and ended 3 April. World of Tanks Blitz was released (in the iOS version only) on May 2014 in European countries like Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, and Iceland, with all other countries currently awaiting launch. It was released on 27 June 2014 in North America, (again, in the iOS version only). Beta testing and/or release of the Android version has been released on the Russian server. World of Tanks Blitz was released on Android on 4 December 2014. As of February 2015, the Android version had 1.1 million downloads. The game was released in the Windows Store on 28 December 2015 making it available for PC users running Windows 10.

Xbox 360 and Xbox One
World of Tanks: Xbox 360 Edition was developed with Wargaming West, formerly Day 1 Studios until purchased early in 2013. Day 1 was looking for a publisher for their console mech game when Wargaming asked the studio about porting World of Tanks. Day 1 prototyped the game on the Xbox 360 "in mere days". They were given unrestricted access to Wargaming's servers and art. The game's client side runs on Wargaming's Despair engine. The company aimed to give each tank class 100 hours of unlockable content, or 400 to 500 hours overall.

The version is free-to-play for Xbox Live Gold subscribers, and includes a 7-day trial for Xbox Live Silver subscribers. Playing the game earns experience for tanks and accessories, and silver for buying tanks and equipment. Players can use gold, an in-game currency, to buy premium World of Tanks accounts, which in turn give players more experience and credits faster. Players can buy gold with real money in the later patches. Gold for premium accounts and tanks is the fastest method for progressing through the game. The Xbox 360 Edition is not connected with the PC game, with a separate user base and no crossplay. World of Tanks: Xbox 360 Edition received positive reviews from critics. Aggregating review website Metacritic gave the version 78/100 score and GameRankings - 76.86%.

A closed beta test began in early 2013, and E3 2013 attendees were invited to the beta after the game's announcement. The game was working on retail Xbox 360s by mid-May 2013. In late May 2013, Wargaming announced that they would be showing its first console game at E3 2013. The game was officially announced during Microsoft's E3 2013 press event. An open beta with 40 American and German tanks was scheduled to begin the weekend after E3 2013. The beta was for stress testing the servers and multiplayer matchmaking. Players could not buy gold in the open beta, but Wargaming provided free in-game gold to test the store, though this reset with the official release. British tanks were also available within the beta. About 60 total tanks were expected to be included in the full version. The open beta was released on 7 August 2013. The beta closed on 28 January 2014. All stats on all of the players who participated were reset. The people who participated in the beta got the game first when the full version came out on 12 February 2014.

Xbox Live regulations bar Wargaming from offering premium accounts as recurring subscriptions. Expansion released on 3 June 2014 includes Russian tanks. Wargaming West said that if the Xbox 360 version gets a "meaningful user base" then they will focus on the Xbox One edition.

On 18 February 2015, Wargaming announced that they were developing an Xbox One version of the game. The game was released on 28 July 2015. It supports cross-platform play between Xbox 360 and Xbox One. Players' status and progress can be transferred from the Xbox 360 version to the Xbox One version.

Playstation 4
On September 17, 2015 Wargaming CEO Victor Kislyi announced at the Tokyo Game Show that World of Tanks would be coming to the PlayStation 4. Developed by Wargaming West, the same developer as the Xbox One and Xbox 360 versions.

Reception
World of Tanks has received favorable reviews, and holds a Metacritic score of 80 out of 100.