World of Warplanes
World of Warplanes drops you into quick, arcade-style dogfights with a roster built around the early decades of military aviation. It leans on straightforward controls and a familiar free-to-play progression loop, letting you unlock and upgrade aircraft through a multi-branch tech tree while battling other players for control of the sky.
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Publisher: Wargaming Playerbase: Low Type: Flight Combat MMO Release Date: November 12, 2013 Pros: +Snappy, arcade dogfights. +Large aircraft roster (100+). +Deep, branching tech tree. Cons: -Uneven matchmaking, especially with fewer players. -Objectives can feel samey over time. -UI and menus can feel awkward and sluggish. |
World of Warplanes Overview
World of Warplanes is an arcade flight combat MMO that focuses on short, team-based PvP battles set during aviation’s formative combat era. The game features over 100 aircraft representing several major nations, including Germany, Japan, Great Britain, China, USA, and the Soviet Union, and splits them into four distinct roles: Fighters, Multirole Fighters, Heavy Fighters, and Ground Attack Planes. Each line feeds into an extensive tech tree, moving from early biplanes toward later, more advanced aircraft, eventually reaching jet-powered machines.
Matches are built around two opposing teams fighting for aerial dominance until one side is wiped out and the other secures control of the battle. Between games, you spend currencies earned from play to unlock new planes and improve your current hangar. Credits and experience handle most progression, while gold serves as the premium option for certain conveniences and purchases.
World of Warplanes Key Features:
- Over 100 Aerial Vehicles – fly planes from the early 20th century across multiple nations.
- In-Depth Tech Tree – multiple aircraft branches plus equipment and upgrades to research and buy.
- Four Warplane Classes – fighters, multirole fighters, heavy fighters, and ground attack planes.
- Fast-Paced Matches – short, arcade-leaning team battles built around air-to-air action.
- In-Game Currency System – credits, experience, and gold can be exchanged for items and planes.
World of Warplanes Screenshots
World of Warplanes Featured Video
World of Warplanes Review
World of Warplanes targets players who want the thrill of a dogfight without the workload of a full simulation. It is built around simple aiming and maneuvering, readable aircraft roles, and progression that keeps dangling the next plane in the line. The core idea is solid: queue up, spawn in, and get into the action quickly. In practice, the game’s best moments come when you have enough opponents in the air to create constant pressure and opportunities for flanking, and its weakest moments show up when population and matchmaking fail to deliver that scale.
Starting Out in the Hangar
Early on, the game points new pilots toward basic training, but experienced players can opt out and head straight into regular battles. You begin with a small selection of starter biplanes representing different nations, giving you a quick taste of how the game uses stats to separate aircraft. Instead of trying to model every real-world quirk, World of Warplanes relies on broad attributes like durability, speed, and maneuverability to establish strengths and weaknesses. That approach fits the arcade tone and makes it easier to understand what you are buying and researching.
As you climb, the hangar opens up into a large lineup that stretches from fragile early aircraft into far more capable machines, culminating in jet-powered planes at the top end. The promise of that upward path is one of the game’s biggest hooks, because each tier shift noticeably changes how forgiving your plane feels and how quickly engagements resolve.
Controls and Combat Basics
Moment to moment, World of Warplanes is intentionally approachable. Your aiming reticle follows your mouse movement, and firing is as straightforward as lining up a target and holding the trigger. A boost function lets you trade engine heat for short bursts of speed, which can be used to chase, disengage, or reposition, although it is easy to overuse and hit the overheat limit. The system is clear enough, but the repeated warning chatter can become grating over a long session.
Weapon range also plays a major role in how fights develop. You are encouraged to close distance until the target is within effective range, and the game provides a lead indicator to help you place shots where the enemy is heading. That guidance keeps the learning curve reasonable, but it also contributes to the overall “arcade” feel, where success is often about staying in the right envelope and maintaining time-on-target rather than mastering complex instrumentation.
Matchmaking and Battle Size
Where the experience can falter is in how battles are assembled. With a low playerbase, the game sometimes produces very small matches that feel more like skirmishes than air battles. When only a handful of planes are in the sky, the pacing becomes uneven, there is less room for teamwork, and the outcome can hinge on a single duel or a single mistake.
The other issue is spread. You may encounter opponents flying more advanced aircraft than your own, and while maneuverability can occasionally compensate, raw advantages like speed, firepower, and survivability still matter. The game has to balance queue times against “perfect” matchmaking, but the result can be frustrating when you are trying to learn in entry-level planes and repeatedly collide with aircraft that simply have better tools.
Objectives and Long-Term Variety
World of Warplanes largely revolves around a single multiplayer format (Standard Battle), and the main goal usually boils down to eliminating enemy aircraft. There are ground targets to attack, and the ground-attack role exists for a reason, but the overall structure still pushes most players toward air-to-air engagements. If you try to commit to ground strikes, you are often depending on teammates to keep enemy fighters off your tail, because slower, less nimble planes can become easy points for attentive opponents.
Ground units also tend to feel more like stationary set dressing than an evolving battlefield. Since targets do not create the sense of a moving frontline, the match can lack that dynamic “war is progressing” feeling that helps missions stay interesting. Over time, this contributes to repetition, especially when match sizes are already small.
Maps, Visuals, and Atmosphere
The game does a respectable job rotating through different environments, including deserts, cities, and mountainous regions, with lighting variations that suggest different times of day. That variety helps prevent the scenery from feeling identical match after match. Still, even with settings pushed higher, the presentation comes across as dated. Plane models are serviceable and readable, but effects like explosions rarely provide the punch you expect from a decisive takedown.
Some maps do stand out for their mood, and the overall look is not “bad” so much as it is plainly average. If you are coming from newer combat games, you may find the visuals functional rather than impressive, with the strongest impression often being the color grading and skyboxes rather than fine texture work.
Menus, Flow, and Downtime
Between matches, the interface can feel heavier than it should. Swapping between planes and hangar options sometimes stutters, and the overall navigation is not as smooth as the game’s quick-match premise suggests. Load times can vary as well, with a noticeable “find players” phase followed by match loading, which can make the downtime feel longer than necessary.
It would be easier to forgive if you could comfortably manage your tech tree and planning while waiting, but the experience often encourages you to sit through the process rather than multitask efficiently. In a game designed around short sessions, those small delays add up.
Progression and Monetization
As a free-to-play title, World of Warplanes follows a familiar pattern: play matches to earn credits and experience, spend those resources to research upgrades, and unlock the next aircraft by moving through tiers. The grind becomes more noticeable as you aim for higher tiers, since advancing typically requires investment across multiple planes rather than sprinting down a single favorite line.
Gold functions as the premium currency and can be used for conveniences like expanding hangar capacity, along with other shortcuts common to the model. You can also purchase planes rather than researching them, and boosters exist for players who want faster progress. The key point is that buying a plane does not automatically translate into winning, you still need positioning and aim to survive, but spending can reduce friction in the long climb.
Final Verdict – Fair
World of Warplanes delivers accessible, fast aerial combat and a satisfying sense of progression through a large aircraft roster. When matchmaking produces a healthy number of players, the dogfighting can be genuinely enjoyable, and the tech tree provides clear long-term goals. The problem is consistency: small matches, uneven matchups, repetitive objectives, and a clunky interface frequently get in the way of the fantasy.
If you are specifically looking for an arcade flight MMO and do not mind a low population, there is fun to be found here. Players who want more dynamic battles or stronger overall polish may end up wishing for a more complete competitor once the initial novelty wears off.
World of Warplanes Links
World of Warplanes Official Site
World of Warplanes Wikipedia
World of Warplanes Wikia [Database/Guides]
World of Warplanes Requirements
Minimum Requirements:
Operating System: Windows XP
CPU: Intel Pentium 4 3.0GHz or AMD Athlon 64 3200+
RAM: 1 GB RAM
Video Card: Nvidia GeForce 6800 Series 128MB or AMD Radeon HD 4550
Hard Disk Space: 5 GB free space
Recommended Requirements:
Operating System: Windows Vista/7
CPU: Intel Celeron E1400 Dual-Core 2GHz or AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4400+
RAM: 3 GB RAM
Video Card: Nvidia GeForce GT 240 or AMD Radeon HD 3850
Hard Disk Space: 5 GB free space
World of Warplanes Music
World of Warplanes Additional Information
Developer(s): Persha Studia, Wargaming
Publisher: Wargaming
Game Engine: BigWorld
Early Alpha Testing: August 2011
Alpha Testing: February 23, 2012
Closed Beta: May 30, 2012
Release Date: November 12, 2013
Release Date (NA and EU): November 13, 2013
World of Warplanes was developed by Cyprus based international MMO developer Wargaming Public Co Litd. Wargaming first broke through with military-focused online titles like World of Tanks, and World of Warplanes began taking shape around the same period as that earlier success. The game was revealed at E3 in 2011, shortly after World of Tanks launched, and later received a public trailer at Gamescom in August 2011. It also earned recognition at the 2012 European Game Awards, where it was named Europe’s “Most Wanted Online Game.”
Following World of Warplanes, Wargaming continued expanding its military-themed lineup with World of Warships and announced additional projects, including the online collectible card game MMO World of Tanks: Generals. The company also operates its own competitive ecosystem through the Wargaming.net league. On February 14, 2013, Wargaming acquired Gas Powered Games, known for Dungeon Siege and Supreme Commander. On July 22, 2013, Wargaming purchased the intellectual property rights to Total Annihilation and Master of Orion from the Atari Bankruptcy proceedings.