Wargaming — the folks behind World of Tanks, the upcoming World of Warplanes, and the even more upcoming World of Battleships — is growing at an insane rate. They’ve been a big company over in Eurasia for a while, but now they’re finally starting to conquer the Americas. After my meeting with Wargaming at E3, it was clear that they’ve got nowhere to go but up.
Perhaps the most important part of their future is what I’ve been calling the Wargaming Umbrella. Their goal is to unify all three of their games so that they all use the same currency and make it easier to switch in between their games. Wargaming is attempting to make their games more accessible to everyone so they can include as many people as possible in their brand of free-to-play gaming.
Wargaming is kicking things off with their new update to World of Tanks: update 7.4. This update is finally adding British tanks into the mix, something of relative importance considering it was those slimy Brits that introduced the world to the first tank during World War I. World of Tanks will also receive new maps and modes with the new update. One mode has a team defending a base from the oncoming attacking team, a nice change of pace from the deathmatch-style mode they use now.
World of Warplanes is currently only in its closed beta stages, but I got to see the game being played at E3. Warplanes focuses largely on air-to-air dogfights, but the underlying mechanics looked and sounded great. For example, the bigger planes may have droppable bombs equipped that can do some serious damage to structures on the ground, and once the bombs are released, the plane will actually become more nimble. If your plane gets shot and bullets pierce the wings, your plane’s lift will be affected. Small details like that are sure to get plane-flying aficionados really excited. In fact, just the manner in which they talked about their games made it clear that authenticity was a priority.
Unfortunately, World of Battleships wasn’t far enough along for me to see during my time with Wargaming. They mentioned that Battleships will be the slowest paced of the three games, simply because of the nature of the sea. It’s also the one that I’m most looking forward to, since the slow-paced gameplay should also lend itself to a more tactical battlefield.
I think that what Wargaming is trying to do with their franchise is phenomenal. Linking the games together is a necessity if they want players to try out and experiment with each one. If currency was only tied to one game, players may not want to invest the time in a new game just to start back at zero.
Wargaming is hoping to link these games together as soon as possible, though no date (or rough estimate) was given.
