World of Tanks

World of Tanks is a free-to-play armoured combat MMO from Wargaming, covering 20th-century military vehicles from the interwar period through the Cold War. Players control a single tank in team-based 15v15 matches, working through a tech tree of 800+ vehicles across 11 nations and 11 tiers — light tanks built for speed and reconnaissance, heavies built for armour, mediums built for versatility, tank destroyers built for ambush, and self-propelled guns played from an RTS-style overhead view. The freemium model offers cosmetics, premium accounts, and premium vehicles for purchase; core gameplay and the full tech tree are accessible without spending.

The detail worth naming is the longevity. World of Tanks launched in 2010, and the player base has held across sixteen years of patches, expansions, and platform extensions to console and mobile. The historical research is real — vehicle models and characteristics are based on archival specifications, and the game has crossed over into the broader culture of WWII-era military history, including a Dark Horse comic series and recurring collaborations with the Girls und Panzer anime. After Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Wargaming broke ties with its Russian and Belarusian operations and transferred them to a separate entity, Lesta Games, which now operates a separate re-skinned game (Mir Tankov) for the Russian-speaking market. The international Wargaming and the Russian successor are now legally distinct.