Five online vehicle combat games, side by side

The comparison table

Four of the columns below can be stated from a primary source. The fifth, business model, is the one readers most want filled in and the one this site refuses to guess at, because pricing structures in this genre change without notice and a wrong figure here would be a misleading claim under Australian Consumer Law, enforceable against the publisher of this site rather than the publisher of the game.

Where a cell says "check the publisher's site", it means Prowave has no primary source it can point you to that is certain to be current. Treat that as a prompt, not as an absence.

What each column is for

Publisher or developer

Who is accountable for the game, who holds your account, and whose support system you deal with if something goes wrong. In this genre one company frequently publishes several of the titles a player is choosing between, which matters if you already hold an account with them.

What you control

The clearest single difference between these titles. A game about assembling a vehicle from parts and a game about crewing a battleship share a genre label and almost nothing else.

Primary platform focus

Where the publisher aims the product. A console version existing does not mean the desktop version and the console version share accounts, progress or matchmaking; they routinely do not.

Pricing and purchases

What the game charges for, if anything, and how. This is left to the publisher's own page deliberately, and the reasoning is set out on the method page.

Crossout

The distinguishing feature of Crossout is that the vehicle is not issued to the player. It is built from components, and the components come off other players' wrecks or out of the game's own economy, which gives the title a construction and trading layer that the others in this group do not have. That appeals strongly to players who enjoy the engineering problem and much less to players who want to be in a battle two minutes after installing.

The setting is a collapsed world rather than a historical one, so nothing here maps onto real equipment. Current platform, pricing and regional details are published at crossout.net.

Enlisted

Enlisted is the least vehicle-centred title in this group. The player directs a squad of infantry, with tanks and aircraft appearing as part of a combined-arms battlefield rather than as the whole of it. A reader who came looking specifically for armoured vehicle combat will find the emphasis divided; a reader who wants the vehicles in a wider context may prefer it for exactly the same reason.

It shares a publisher with War Thunder and Crossout, which is worth noting only because account and launcher arrangements sometimes overlap between titles from the same publisher. Details are at enlisted.net.

War Thunder

War Thunder covers aircraft, ground vehicles and naval vessels within a single progression system, and offers modes that differ substantially in how much assistance the game gives the player. That range is its main structural difference from the Wargaming titles, which keep each vehicle class in its own separate game. For a player who wants to fly one evening and drive the next without maintaining two installations, that consolidation is the argument in its favour.

The same range makes the early hours harder to navigate, because the game is really several games sharing an interface. Current information is published at warthunder.com.

World of Tanks

World of Tanks is the advertiser on this site, and the disclosure below the link says so plainly. On the merits, it is the most narrowly focused title in the group: armoured vehicles, team against team, on discrete maps, with none of the aircraft, infantry or naval layers that the other entries add. That focus is the reason it is often recommended as the entry point into the genre, and also the reason a player who wants variety within one installation may find it limiting.

The advertiser's own description covers a large international player base, graphics built on the publisher's Core engine, destructible objects, thirty maps rebuilt in high definition and a new soundtrack. Prowave has not measured any of that and presents it as the publisher's description of its own product. The access path described in the same material is a single opt-in sign-up: create an account, activate it, and play. No price appears in that material and none is stated here.

A longer entry for this title, separating publisher statements from verified facts, is at Inside World of Tanks.

World of Warships

World of Warships applies the same team-versus-team structure as its stablemate to naval surface combat, where engagement ranges are long, shells take seconds to arrive and a mistake is punished several minutes later rather than immediately. It is the slowest-paced title in this group, which is a recommendation for some readers and a disqualification for others.

A separately published console game exists under a similar name; it is a different product with its own progression, and the desktop details are at worldofwarships.eu.

Comparing them yourself in twenty minutes

The comparison above is deliberately thin on the things that change. Here is the sequence that answers the remaining questions from primary sources, which is faster than it sounds:

1. Open the publisher's site for each shortlisted title and find the system requirements page. Compare the recommended tier, not the minimum, against your own machine.
2. Find the store or premium page on the same site. Read what is sold, and specifically whether anything sold is delivered through a randomised mechanic.
3. Check the download size and whether the launcher supports pausing and resuming. On a metered connection this decides whether the install is practical this month.
4. Search the Australian Classification Board database at classification.gov.au for the title and read the consumer advice attached to the decision.
5. Check whether the publisher offers two-factor authentication on accounts before you create one. This is easier to set up on day one than after a compromise.