World of Tanks update 9.10 adds Japanese heavies

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World of Tanks’ latest patch has come out and is all about beasts from the east in the form of Japanese heavy tanks. Adding seven new vehicles to the game, the defining characteristic of the new tech line is slow, steady and overwhelmingly strong wins the race. They don’t get anywhere quickly, but they do pack a mighty punch and have thick armour. One of them is even the largest tank in the entire game.

Along with these new angry houses comes a fresh game mode and various changes to how the early levels work. Here’s a handy vid that takes you through the details:

A couple of things jump out to me, a lapsed player, as particularly interesting. Improving the tutorials is definitely a must. World of Tanks is not an especially difficult game to learn – get a tank, get in it, drive it about, shoot the enemies – but it does have an initial hump to get over that may prove confusing. There’s a lot of options for new, free players and many of them weren’t very well explained when I initially tried the game a few years ago. I’m not sure who is benefitted by the restrictions of maps based on tier – which is basically WoT’s version of levelling in an MMORPG – but it will help with a stronger sense of progression when moving between them.

Meanwhile, I’m a big fan of adding heavy tanks to earlier tiers. My want for a slow moving, heavy hitting juggernaut was so strong when I first played that I resorted to the game’s boogyman, long-range point’n’click artillery, and never looked back. I just want things to explode 2-3 seconds after I click on them, is that too much to ask? More variety at the earlier tiers was also much needed, from my perspective, and this helps to counterbalance the removal of maps.

World of Tanks is free to play and quite fun, if you want to give it a go. While looking out the video for this post, I also found this:

Best game marketting hashtag ever, to be honest.