Wargaming announced that it will launch World of Tanks 2.0 as a heavily-updated game on September 1 in Asia and September 3 in the U.S. and Europe.
The developers at Wargaming have been working on World of Tanks — which Will Wright called a shooter game for old people — for 15 years. It debuted in 2010 and has been played by tens of millions of players as the flagship title for vehicle-based shooters, said Michael Broek, regional publishing director at Wargaming, in a press briefing.
“World of Tanks is almost 15 years on the market,” Broek said. “We launched first in 2010 so quite a long time ago. Over the past 15 years, it has become the company’s flagship title, shaping the genre of vehicle-based shooters. It’s very hard not to find a gamer who doesn’t know our product.”
He added, “The game has attracted and engaged millions of players worldwide, and we have very, very big plans for the future. We are celebrating its 15th anniversary here now in August. We had very, very big and ambitious plans to give a present to the product, but also to our players. And that’s why we are bringing out the update 2.0 in September.”
The last time the company did something on this scale was 2017, when it finally announced the free-to-play game had reached version 1.0. The company is showing it off at Gamescom this week. Back at its 10th anniversary, World of Tanks had cleared $1 billion in revenue.
“2.0 will have significantly more content than 1.0,” Broek said. “It’s as ambitious as building a new game from scratch.
The work took the company’s team about two years to do.
“2.0 will be a cornerstone of the game’s future evolution with many more updates to come,” he said.
The game includes Tier 11 vehicles. The tier has 15 new tanks for no extra cost. There is a one special tank that serves as the ultimate reward. During the past 15 years, the maximum tier for tanks was Tier 10 until now.
The game has a new progression system with visual upgrades and enhanced performance. Each tank has unique abilities and vanity items that you can unlock. Each tank plays differently, Broek said. You can earn the tanks without spending premium currency for real money.
“[The 2.0 update] took us a bit over one and a half years to put everything together. It was basically as ambitious as building a new product from scratch. World of Tanks is a very sophisticated product, so adding a completel layer on top of it requires a lot of work from the teams in order to pull it off in a very balanced way,” Broek said.
“There are no extra barriers or anything. All you need to do is basically play the game like you did before and [unlock vehicles]. So it’s very organic for our players, and it’s completely natural how you progress in this new tier line,” he said.
Once you complete a number of new missions, you can earn a new special Tier 11 tank. There is also a new progression system for Tier 11 vehicles. The update has visual upgrades, but also lets you basically enhance your performance on the battlefield
There will be Tier 11 tanks from nations such as the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, Poland, Czech and more. There’s a new garage where you can modify and admire your tanks and a new user interface.
The garage has an integrated ammo inspector. It allows you, within the game client, to look at all the tech models and, by color code, identify the armor thickness or the weak spots of every vehicle.
“So meaning, if it’s green, it means that’s where you should shoot, because you are likely to penetrate. If the armor is red, try not to shoot it will actually not penetrate,” he said. The user interface has simplified navigation, with no more than two clicks to anything, said Broek.
With 2.0, the company is also releasing a brand new PvE mode, called Operation Boiling Point, and which will actually allow players, for the first time, to get their hands on Tier 11 tanks. There are three tanks from Tier 11 you can play in Operation Boiling Point.
The game is high-res ready for 2K and 4K displays. It has legacy support for previous settings, a brand new map, and player-versus-environment (PvE) mode.
World of Tanks 2.0 introduces Nordskar as a new PvE map. This is the long-awaited new map that players have requested for a long time. The new PvE mode debuts on Nordskar with the Operation Boiling Point mission.
The team had to go through a massive rebalancing exercise to improve stock tanks and make impactful upgrades for dynamic battles. The matchmaker system has been revamped for faster queues, fairer team balance and dynamic battles.
World of Tanks Heat
And Wargaming also said World of Tanks Heat is a brand new standalone game that focuses on heroic tank gameplay. It has 10v10 action and a variety of game modes, visual excellence, cross-platform and cross-progression — all from day one. As Broek said, you can’t buy victory. It is “free to win.”
The new brand doesn’t have a launch date yet.
Luke Nichols, head of community, said World of Tanks Heat is a free-to-play tactical vehicle shooter that is built on a brand new Wargaming proprietary engine.
“It is a game that is designed from the ground up to be fully cross-platform and cross progression from day one. That means PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S as well as Steam will all be launching together. We’ve actually been in active development for over three years from some of our core locations in Vilnius, Warsaw, Belgrade and Nicosia, with a 200 strong team made up of Wargaming veterans and industry veterans that have worked on some of the biggest shooters and open world titles out there, and now we’re taking all of that combined experience and applying it to tanks.”
Heat is set in an alternate post-World War II reality, a world in a technological renaissance, threatened by a shadow organization armed with experimental weapons, he said.
“As you play as the commander of an elite Crisis Response Unit with one job to recruit unique agents, each with their own hero tanks and battlefield abilities, and then lead them into fast-paced 10v10 battles,” Nichols said. “It’s really all about keeping the weight and authenticity of tank combat, but giving players the pace of tactics and cinematic feel that you’ve never seen in the franchise before. Let’s talk a little bit about what makes heat different from other tank games out there.”
The hero tanks bring both personality and interesting tactics and abilities to the battlefield. Second, Heat will let you build your own ultimate tank.
“Our tanks are all based on real engineering and prototypes from the era, but reimagined for gameplay, so you can customize weapons, armor and also abilities to suit your own playstyle,” Nichols said. “We’ve implemented a variety of dynamic game modes, popular modes from competitive shooters like Kill Confirmed, Domination and Conquest, and rebuilt them all for tank combat.”
The key to winning heat is skill, not paying for upgraded content.
“Every agent is paired with their own signature vehicle, and together, they combine to create a unique role on the battlefield,” Nichols said. “Some agents can also unlock additional vehicles down the line, giving you fresh combinations of abilities and play styles as you progress.”
The demo shown so far is alpha gameplay. World of Tanks Heat isn’t meant to cannibalize the core product. Rather, it’s aimed at inviting new players into the franchise.