World of Warships turns one on September 17 – that’s almost a year of browser-based nautical free-for-alls. In that time over 22 million accounts have been activated, the roster of ships has risen from 50 to 200, and two new nations have made their way into the game. While we’ve known since launch that Britain’s Royal Navy would eventually be coming to World of Warships, today however – during Wargaming’s 100 years of tanks celebration – we finally got to try them out for ourselves.
Related: check out the best World War Two games for more naval action.
The Royal Navy update is still without a confirmed release date, but we do know that it’s tech tree will consist of ten light cruisers. Some of these ships, like the Minotaur and Neptune are based on prototypes, while others like the Fiji and Edinburgh are modelled after their real-life counterparts.
In line with the general performance of the game’s current array of light cruisers, most of the new British ships are agile and stealthy, making them perfect for rushing to objectives, but ill-equipped for lengthy firefights. That said, the Minotaur, which is the highest tier British cruiser, behaved more like lumbering behemoth, packing plenty of punch at the cost of being almost completely immobile at slow speeds or when damaged.
Here’s the full list of cruisers from tier one to ten:
- Black Swan
- Weymouth
- Caledon
- Danae
- Emerald
- Leander
- Fiji
- Edinburgh
- Neptune
- Minotaur
A number of community events will also be launched on September 17 that will run for two weeks to mark World of Warship’s first birthday.