There’s no shortage of games made about modern warfare, including a game with that very title. But what if you like your war campaign to be set during an earlier time, say World War II? That’s when you play War Thunder, possibly the most comprehensive video game inspired by that time period to date. Let’s see what the game has to offer to its players.

The game had an initial release in 2012, had the War Thunder trailer out recently, and has now been ‘fully released’ as an online MMO (massive multiplayer online). It can be played on the PS4, XBox One and PC, and is free to play, but you can opt to buy a variety of vehicle packs and upgrades to give your performance a friendly boost. A lot of countries feature in the game, from the US, Nazi Germany, Japanese Empire to Italy and Romania.

(Check War Thunder here)

How to access the game

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So there are three modes you can access for playing the game. The first one is arcade, where you get unlimited fuel, some amount of protection against enemy attacks and easier gameplay.

That’s basically the newbie mode the game gives you to get used to the mechanics. The next modes is realism, where you start to feel the physics of the game really begin to more closely resemble reality in terms of maneuverability, getting damaged and being killed.

Finally, you have the simulation mode, and this is where the gloves come off. The game no longer makes the gameplay easy for you by simplifying the laws of physics for your benefit. If you get shot you will not recover.

Tips on playing War Thunder

If you need fuel for a return bombing trip on your plane, you’ll have to head back to the refueling dock. Only players who’ve spent considerable time in the game and know how to move around without getting killed should play the game in simulation mode.

There’s a lot of attention to detail in this game, and the meticulously created background noises are particularly realistic. You get to choose from over 800 artillery and vehicle models, so there’s plenty of variety to the visuals. You play a 16 vs. 16 side battle against other players and the AI, where all the battles on the opposing team need to be destroyed for you to win.

A game that is historically accurate

In addition, there are some event rounds you can play where you have a specific mission to accomplish along with your team. Some of these missions are based on actual missions from history, and those are particularly cool to take part in, although you need to buy them first.

You can play in a ground- based mode, and that’s pretty standard war game fare. There’s nothing there that we haven’t already seen in other games in the past, but where the game truly shines is in the aerial battle mode.

Make sure to use the tutorial before flying a plane, since air crafts are tricky things to handle in-game. The most annoying thing about the game is its menu, which is far too detailed and cumbersome to get through quickly.

Time consuming but worth every second

However, you’ll need to spend quite some time on this menu, assembling your crew and assigning guns and vehicles to them. There are plenty of tutorials for every variety of ammunition and vehicles that you use in the game, but most of them aren’t really needed if you’ve played similar games before, except the aircraft tutorial.

All in all this is a solid addition to the World War II inspired variety of games out there. The War Thunder’s tepid gameplay of ground-based battles are made up for by the spectacular air battles. The visual details are great, the sound effects are impressive, and you get a nice feel for the time period and the people involved in the conflict.

If you’re looking to kill us some hours online taking part in missions against enemy air crafts in the sky, war thunder is a good way to go.

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