Review: World of Warships

Chasing a game with big guns, high seas and more salt in the breeze than in the chat log? In that case, World of Warships is for you. It’s the latest free-to-play foray into vehicular combat for Wargaming, best known for World of Tanks, and proves the old adage of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”.

While decidedly slower than World of Tanks or Warplanes, Warships still bears the classic signs of being a Wargaming game both in and out of gameplay. If you’ve played the other titles in the universe you’ll be familiar with Warships’ port screen. This is where all of the modules are applied to your ship and where you research new ships to do battle with. Commanders return too to buff your ship in different ways to hopefully give you an edge in combat.

The actual gameplay itself is where World of Warships starts to break away from the other Wargaming titles. While featuring a similar focus on objective based gameplay, Warships plays around these differently. Tanks feels like a game of cat and mouse where you’re always trying to get around your opponent to hit him unawares. Warships is more akin to a shouting match that ends in a brawl. The bigger ships will skirt around fights throwing haymakers at each other while the small ones will try and dart in and smack each other below the belt.

Speakings of ships, Warships features more than enough to whet your appetite. These largely come in two flavours: American or Imperial navy. Some premium ships exist for other navies too, notably the British, Soviet and (with the inclusion of the Tirpitz) German navies. Ships are further divided into four classes, each of which has a vastly different role in combat. Even ships within a class can vary greatly in their role depending on their armament.

Destroyers (my favourite class) are quick and agile, able to dart around maps laying smoke screens while harassing the enemy. They also pack torpedoes which are excellent for sucker punching bigger ships around islands or from smoke, but can hurt allies if used incorrectly. Next comes Cruisers, more heavily armed and armoured than the smaller Destroyers but able to use their main guns to much greater effect. Many Cruisers also have sizable anti-aircraft batteries that can be used to defend other allied ships from onslaughts of torpedo bombers.

The biggest and scariest guns belong to the Battleships. These bad boys are fully capable of destroying enemy ships with well-placed shots. Big, slow and highly immobile, Battleships work best when sailing in one direction. Their fire rate is horrid but when you’re fully capable of sinking an enemy in one salvo that’s not really so important. Finally, we have the Aircraft Carriers, perhaps the most unique of the four classes. Carriers launch bombers and fighters from their decks which can be controlled from an overhead map view rather than the regular over-deck view of the other three classes. In fact you don’t even have direct control of Carriers, instead you set up the autopilot and concentrate on micromanaging your planes. It’s different and certainly not for everyone but the utility Carriers bring is undeniable.

A well-balanced team is essential in World of Warships and thankfully the matchmaking is normally pretty excellent at ensuring even teams. One thing it can’t account for however is player skill and decision making. Warships is undoubtedly a team game and having a coordinated team does wonders but having a few lone wolves on a team almost ensures defeat. Sailing into any situation where you’re outnumbered is an almost guaranteed death, there is no way you can throw as much fire as you’ll be catching and the enemy will swiftly dispose of you. Many players seem to fail to realise this and sail full speed into a hail of enemy fire, leading to spectacular explosions.

That’s how most of these games end too, fiery explosions. It’s rare that whatever objective the map requires is met with players favouring fighting over capturing. The objectives are more of a means than an end; they bring the two teams together, give them an idea to fight for and let the rest work itself out. I think only one or two matches I’ve played ever ended in an objective victory, even that was only due to the sole surviving enemy ship spending the match fleeing. This heavy focus on the actual fighting is fine by me as the combat is immensely satisfying. All of the sounds in combat give the game an awesome atmosphere. From the little creakings of the ship as you turn and maneuver to the chatter of anti-aircraft guns and the boom of the main cannons, Wargaming.net nailed the soundscape of this game.

All Wargaming.net games feature the same tech tree set up that eases you in to the games mechanics. Things start out pretty basic with one Cruiser on offer for each tech tree. A few games later you’ll have unlocked your Destroyer and can start experimenting a bit more to see what style suits you. The first few levels of the tech trees can be unlocked with just a few hours play but if you want to hit those big tier 10 Battleships like the Yamato then expect to put in some serious game time.

This is also the foundation of my major gripe with this game, the first few ships are boring. They’re dull, lifeless and genuinely unfun which is not at all representative of the Tier IV+ ships. I know that you have to draw people in slowly and make them work for bigger ships but surely player retention crashes after Tier II. Dangling the offer of Battleships and Aircraft Carriers is probably what draws most people into the game but even then the early Battleships are, well, crap. On my personal account I’d just broken into Tier IV and was loving it. The destroyers in that tier are a heap of fun to play and they only get better. The press account I was given had every ship unlocked and allowed me to fool around on some of the higher tier ships too, and you know what? They were great. It’s just a shame the game starts so rough, which either turns players away (like some of my friends) or turns them to microtransactions.

Again I was lucky enough to be given a press account with every ship unlocked to test out Warships but my personal account isn’t so lucky. I don’t buy into microtransactions much as a rule but some of them are fairly essential in Warships. You need more space in your port which costs a lot of ingame currency, luckily you can purchase premium currency and change that into the regular ingame stuff. Thankfully you can’t really buy progress towards the Tier X behemoths, that takes a lot of time regardless, but you can buy premium ships too. Are megatransactions a thing? If so, some of these ships available are most definitely megatransactions. The Japanese tier VIII Cruiser, the Atago, is an all around amazing ship that will set you back around $63 AUD. Keeping in mind that Warships is free to play, but damn that’s an investment.

Ultimately this game has everything going for it. It’s fun, well designed and well made all round. It looks nice enough and plays well too. The microtransactions are never really essential and only become tempting after some serious time investment. If you can handle the uphill battle that is progression than you’ll get a lot out of Warships. Regardless, give it a crack. It’s free to play and you may just enjoy yourself.

World of Warships‘ was reviewed using a promotional code and account on Windows PC as provided by the publisher, as well as a regular free-to-play account created by the reviewer.

Review: World of Warships

The good Fun. Tactical gameplay. You can “sink” a lot of time into it.	The bad Slow progression. Boring starter ships. Megatransactions.

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