A World of Wargaming (.net)

The Land Front

The Belorussian company kicked off its demonstration by recalling that they've been battling since 1998. You might remember games such as Massive Assault or Order of War, but the unstoppable Wargaming.net game invasion begun one year ago with World of Tanks. In just a few months, the free-to-play MMO phenomenon gathered more than 35 million registered users. To put that into perspective, at the end of this year it will be like the whole of Spain (every single Spaniard) had played with Wargaming's tanks. Or at least had an account at their site. Spreading that figure worldwide and there's people from more than two hundred countries into the huge MMO nowadays.

Thus, those tanks dominated the German show: version 8 of World of Tanks will go live next month, adding some physics tuning and a very welcome feature: tank crashing. Players will also be able to try the new British tech tree and watch the championship finals (September 15th and 16th, held in Moscow).

But after the land you want to conquer the air. And then the sea.

The Air Front

And since they want to "always be fans' most anticipated MMO", the new World of Warplanes was their absolute highlight for this years' show. This WWII online dogfighter has been facing USSR, German and US planes during the last months - though in a closed beta state (more than one million users signed on to patrol the skies). Japanese fighters join the party in September, too.

So enough numbers and data: what do you do when you're "wargaming" in World of Warplanes? Well, obviously, you battle with your own fighter. Online and real-time. Each fighter has its own stats, specific handling and combat features.

You decide which country your fighter plane soars for: it's less of a aesthetic or national pride though. (Most) nation's planes fit into one of the game's three classes: light or heavy fighters, or ground attack-enabled planes (think a tank with wings).

Before liftoff you can check out your plane from the hangar, and think about your battle style and prospects, upgrading or equipping your plane with the best modules available. Use the most efficient plane engine. Decide between ammo type or secondary weapons. Select easy presets: is it better to have two big bombs or a nest of fast rockets? Then choose pilot skills and perks...it's an RPG progression system that, according to the team, will be "historically accurate".

But that accuracy does not need to mean simulation. Neither it is arcade action. It looks like World of Warplanes sits in the middle of both worlds, trying to please warplane lovers in general. In the air, handling is smooth and aiming is easy, dependent, of course, on current damage, physics and plane features. Keyboard and mouse setup was available, but you will be able to connect your usual gamepad or even that trustworthy flight stick.

It might be the beauty of the skies, but this World of Warplanes also looks better than its tank colleague. Solid, colorful and convincing, always keeping in mind the non-simulation approach. Since matchmaking will see 15 vs 15 players (of the same ability and experience tier), this could easily become one of the best-looking F2P MMOs out there.

The Board Front

Yes: they are confident they can win in this very-traditional closed field too. World of Tanks: Generals' game mechanics are what you've come to expect from the collectable card genre, be it physical or digital form. They had some real cards around at the presentation room but, for the moment, the Wargaming.net team can only confirm the virtual game, with more than 220 cards planned.

Generals is your typical strategy-collectible card game. Two headquarters face each other: the first to reach 0 hit points loses, the one with less hit points at timeout loses too. HQs have their own card, reflecting those hit points and an artillery unit. SP cards add abilities (battle orders), Magic style. Platoon cards modify HQ's prospects, while vehicle (tank) cards add the WoT-branded touch with its own capabilities. The idea is to collect the best deck for synergy.

Aside from being digital only at the moment, this is a browser game, playable at your computer or tablet. In the future, more than two players will be able to card-battle in the "domination" mode, on top of the typical PvE and campaign modes.

Post-Battle

With all these war fronts around the corner, we're eager to try them all (it's free, after all) and see how big the Wargaming invasion can get. If the player account keeps with the pace, and considering the single global map and the possibility of sharing resources between the three games, we actually have some foreboding as to the future to come: the biggest PC-MMO war ever, between tanks, planes and ships. Isn't that a World of Wargaming?