English
Gamereactor
reviews
Armored Warfare

Armored Warfare

A free to play team-based tank game in need of better atmosphere and more players.

Subscribe to our newsletter here!

* Required field
HQ
HQ

Free-to-play team-based action MMO Armored Warfare was first released in open beta for PC back in October 2015, and since then the game's developing studio has changed from Obsidian to Mail.ru and many additional features such as night battles have been added. Recently the game has been released for PlayStation 4 as well, and so we decided to take a closer look.

Armored Warfare is set in a fictional near-future where terrorist attacks and resulting social upheaval have led to the global collapse of major institutions and a severe limitation of the power of national governments. Large corporations have set up their own armed forces, which has allowed them to take control over large parts of the world, fighting in order to make a profit off their natural resources and industrial facilities. The player assumes the role of a mercenary commanding their own armored fighting vehicle, while every map features a confrontation between two of the major corporations fighting proxy wars across the globe.

The game has a starting menu very similar to that of World of Tanks, with the vehicles you own visible in a garage alongside the game's tech tree and menus for customisation and upgrades for each vehicle. It's possible to install extra modules that boost performance (such as faster aiming) and camouflage and decals for a cosmetic touch, and you can also research and purchase vehicles at arms dealers too. These reflect the corporations of the game's lore, with each arms dealer focusing on different combat aspects. Dealer Marat Shishkin, for example, focuses on defence and firepower, which is reflected in the generally slower and bulkier tanks he has on offer. There are also premium vehicles available for either purchase or rental that earn income and experience at a faster rate, which is actually a welcome addition if all you're looking for is some temporary variety in your gameplay.

This is an ad:

Armored Warfare has a tiered progression system, similar to its two main competitors, World of Tanks and War Thunder. You start out with a couple of free tier I vehicles, which you can upgrade by gathering experience points and earning credits, and once you've completed all upgrades on a vehicle you're able to progress to the next tier and buy a new one to start upgrading again. In contrast to the competition, you can keep any vehicle you like in your garage without the need to spend real money to buy new garage slots, and the grind for unlocking all special skills for the tank crew - such as shorter aiming time - is also shorter than in World of Tanks. There's no premium ammo either, which is something else to consider.

Armored Warfare

When playing the game, the choice of vehicles spread out over five classes all play very differently. The main battle tanks are slow, don't spot enemies well, but can take a lot of hits and are easier to deal one-shot damage with, but armoured fighting vehicles, on the other hand, are poorly protected but fast and best used to spot enemies. In later tiers they come equipped with deadly guided missiles that can hit hard on any adversary, but require more skilled aiming. Light tanks are poised between these two, sacrificing armour for mobility and being capable of keeping speed on all terrain types. Then there are the tank destroyers that excel at spotting at long range and have high alpha damage with high calibre weaponry. Lastly, there's an artillery class available that uses a different UI to target enemies, but is only available in PvE game modes. Because we personally prefer human adversaries, we didn't play the latter class too much.

You'll need to adapt your play-style for each vehicle type and every individual vehicle specifically in order to be successful on the battlefield, and the wheeled vehicles are especially fun to play in our experience, as their speed means enemy heavy vehicles will have a hard time hitting you, while you gain points for spotting them and allowing allies to hit them. It's also fun to fire a continuous hail of small grenades at enemy tanks, closing in and circling them in a test of who's able to turn the fastest. Firing off smoke screens and hoping to find a safe place to retreat might be the only smart move when you're being spotted by one of the lighter vehicles.

This is an ad:

The game features both PvP and PvE game modes as mentioned, and in the latter, you and some friends can take on AI-controlled enemies in missions that have you do things like reclaiming an important port from drug cartels or securing a UAV crash site. The easy missions are too easy for our taste though, but the ones on hard setting are far more taxing. The other game mode we played was the PvP mixed with PvE Global Operations mode, as here there are 5v5 human players who fight for control of capture points on the map and kill enemies in order to bring down their opponent's tickets down to zero. Capture point locations change after a while though, ensuring movement throughout the match (in contrast to camping at bottlenecks in World of Tanks, for example). From time to time players can capture 'wildcards' too, which give you single-use combat abilities such as a bombing run, the placement of anti-tank pillboxes, or scouting UAVs.

Armored Warfare

Like in World of Tanks and War Thunder, you need to take into account firing angles and armour thickness on enemy vehicles. A shot at an enemy tank's front armor is likely to result in a bounced shell, for instance, meaning teamwork is essential in order to force enemies to face sub-optimal directions. Choosing the right type of ammunition for your target is equally important, such as guided missiles, which are very powerful weapons in the game, although they require you to keep a continuous obstacle-free aim fixed on the enemy. Gameplay can be considered mostly on the arcade side, slightly more so than World of Tanks, while War Thunder offers a more simulated style of play.

The PvE missions and PvP Global Operations game modes have enough players to start a match after an acceptable waiting time, but sadly we were unable to even try out the 15v15 PvP game mode because there were simply no players available for matchmaking. Even for the Global Operations mode it's normal to wait anywhere between one and five minutes before a match starts (and that's with only 10 players) depending on the tier you're playing.

While the gameplay in Armored Warfare is well thought out, other elements of the game are less satisfying. The soundtrack in the game is incredibly boring, for example, as even in the most heated moments of the battle, the music sticks to the same monotonous and repetitive track. In fact, it's more of a continuous digital humming sound instead of actual music that adds nothing to the game's atmosphere; a missed opportunity to add more immersion. World of Tanks, by comparison, delivers a great soundtrack that cleverly adapts to the player's situation.

Armored Warfare

The game's graphics are a mixed bag, as in daytime maps in well-lit locations such as deserts, the CryEngine-powered environments and vehicles look decent enough, with nice shadowing and detail on the tank models. However, in the darker maps the game looks greyish, dull, and lacking in detail. The weather effects aren't great either, with snowfall making it almost impossible to see anything through the thick cloudy snow effects. The night-time maps are even worse, with shadowing and general detail looking very poor. We've compared the looks with the PC version of the game and that one seems to look a fair bit better (though we tested on higher specs than the PlayStation 4).

The maps and environments are a good fit with the game's background story, though, featuring locations ranging from South American ports to Middle Eastern oil pipelines. There could have been some more detail added to the environments though, as they feel kind of empty at times. The vehicles in the game don't always 'feel' the way they should either, as when driving a tank through a snowy field, we want this to feel like a heavy steel beast crushing everything in its path. In Armored Warfare all vehicles have the same kind of light feel to them, seeming quite nimble and light on the ground regardless of vehicle type. It doesn't help that the engine sounds aren't hugely impressive either.

So what's our verdict of the game in its current state? It's certainly enjoyable from a gameplay perspective and adds a novel game mode with Global Operations. There's a lot of variety in the game regarding vehicle types too (and not too much, looking at how some tanks have three or four varieties in WoT), but it also seems to lack the finishing touch that makes for a really immersive experience, especially with regards to audio effects and music. If, as the game develops, they can make it more immersive but keep the original storyline and game modes intact, this might actually attract the right amount of players for the game to be really successful. For now, we suggest the game for players who especially like modern tanks or enjoy mission-based games to play with friends. We don't think those playing similar games will find much reason to make the switch, but as this is a free-to-play title we'd still recommend fans of the genre give it a try.

HQ
Armored WarfareArmored Warfare
07 Gamereactor UK
7 / 10
+
Global Operations game mode is decent, Vehicle variety is strong, Good gameplay.
-
Boring soundtrack, Mixed graphical performance, Needs more players.
overall score
is our network score. What's yours? The network score is the average of every country's score

Related texts

0
Armored WarfareScore

Armored Warfare

REVIEW. Written by Marco Vrolijk

"While the gameplay in Armored Warfare is well thought out, other elements of the game are less satisfying."



Loading next content