There’s definitely a market out there for free-to-play tank games, as proven by the international domination of Wargaming’s World of Tanks. The strange thing about Armored Warfare isn’t what it is, it’s who’s developing it. Known for their prowess in RPG development, Obsidian seem like a strange fit for a game all about sexy tanks shooting each other with their sexy cannons.
When you actually sit down and think about it, though, Obsidian have plenty of transferable skills. One of the biggest will be in the sense of progression – unlocking new weaponry and upgrades that combat other upgrades your enemies might have, for example. It’s not that far removed from a mage casting a protection buff to dull the hit from an enemy warrior’s blade.
Then there’s Armored Warfare’s PVE mode, which sees players teaming up and facing off against the AI. Tactical battles against computer-controlled opponents are at the core of most RPGs, after all. This is also likely to be what sets Armored Warfare apart from its Eastern European competition. If you want to find out for yourself, phase 5 of the game’s Early Access testing is now live.
And there’s good news for veterans: if you took part in phase 4, all of your progression will carry over. There are also a host of new features, which are listed below in a handy, bullet point style:
- New Tutorial Mode (PvE Operation Royalty).
- New PvP map – Lost Island.
- Changes to PvE: two new PvE operations with a new PvE mission interface; named ‘minibosses’ can now appear on PvE maps; added new ‘Insane’ difficulty level available only on tier 8 vehicles.
- PvE Daily Missions.
- New vehicles – T92, XM1, M41, ERC 90, XM800T, XM8, Leopard 1A5, BMP-1P, Dragoon 300 90.
- New light tank class ability “Override ECU”.
- Kill camera.
- Title system (titles for players, available after meeting certain conditions such as obtaining an achievement).
- New Rewards for the second half of a vehicle’s reputation bar: players with vehicles that have all their modules unlocked (50%+ reputation unlocked) will be able to earn additional credit bonuses, titles, retrofits and more by playing and earning reputation for that vehicle.
- Overhaul of the vehicle status interface.
- New UI feature: environmental camouflage indicator.
- French localisation.
- Significant performance update.
- Large number of bug fixes.
The update isn’t all about additions, unfortunately. The ‘Base’ mechanism, which allocated players their very own military base, has been disabled for now to get it up to standard.
Phase 5 will continue from now until September 20. The full details can be readHERE.
In the meantime, watch this video of a really fast tank.