War Thunder: the complete guide to gaming's biggest vehicle sandbox

War Thunder is the rare free-to-play game that is hard to describe, because it is three games wearing one coat: an air combat sim, a tank game, and a naval game, all sharing one map, one economy and one set of tech trees. This hub explains how it actually works before you sink a weekend into it.

In this guide:

• The one thing to understand first: game modes
• Which nation should you pick?
• Tech trees and cross-branch progression
• The grind, honestly
• Battle ratings and matchmaking
• Can your machine run it?
• Playing air, ground and naval together
• Common beginner mistakes
• Who it's for

Almost every bad first impression of War Thunder comes from starting in the wrong mode. There are three, and they are not difficulty sliders. They change the game completely.

You unlock vehicles along national tech trees, and your first choice matters more than the game tells you. A few honest starting points:

You are not locked in. You can research any nation later. But spreading yourself across four trees at once is the single most common way new players stall out.

Each nation's tech tree branches into air, ground and naval forces separately, and research points earned in one branch can be spent across the others. Meaning a session spent grinding tank battles can fund aircraft research if that's where you actually want to end up. This cross-branch flexibility is one of War Thunder's quieter strengths: you're never fully locked out of a vehicle type just because you've been playing a different one.

War Thunder is free, and the low and mid tiers are generous. You will get dozens of hours before the economy starts to bite. Higher tiers slow down considerably, and repair costs on top-tier vehicles are real. The healthy way to play: stay at the tier you enjoy rather than rushing to the top, because the top is where the grind lives.

Every vehicle carries a Battle Rating that determines what it can be matched against, and understanding BR spread is important. A vehicle that dominates at one rating can be badly outclassed one tier up. New players who upgrade a single vehicle aggressively without understanding this often find themselves matched against opposition their vehicle simply can't handle, which is a common (and avoidable) source of early frustration.

This is one of the better-optimised games in the catalogue. It scales down a long way, older laptops can hold a playable frame rate at low settings, and it runs on both Windows and Mac, which is rare here. If you are on a Mac, this is very likely the only game on this site you can play natively. If frame rate dips in big ground battles, lower shadows and render distance first: visibility is what wins fights.

Combined-arms matches (where aircraft, tanks and sometimes ships share the same battle) are where War Thunder's whole pitch actually comes together, and they play very differently from a mode limited to a single vehicle type. A well-timed strike aircraft can turn a stalled ground push, and a competent anti-air presence can shut down that same strike before it matters; understanding how the three forces interact is a separate skill from being good at any one of them individually. New players tend to specialize in one branch for a long stretch before trying combined-arms modes, and that's a reasonable approach. Just don't assume ground skill alone prepares you for a sky full of enemy aircraft.

If you want the same era with infantry instead of vehicles, look at our Enlisted guide. Same publisher, very different game.

War Thunder asks for patience and pays it back with a level of detail almost nothing else in free-to-play matches. It costs nothing to find out whether that trade suits you.

Start in Arcade, pick one nation, and give it a genuine week before judging the grind. The low and mid tiers are where most players decide whether the detail is worth the patience it asks for, and that verdict rarely changes once it's made.