Wargaming.net, creators of the phenomenal World of Tanks and the closed-beta World of Warplanes, have released this new video focusing on the third element of their military combat franchise, World of Warships.
The video shows an explosive World War 2 Pacific theatre engagement between a Japanese and a US fleet, featuring vast fighter-deploying carriers, torpedo-launching destroyers, gun-heavy battleships and a nice Asian lady optimistically deploying a defence fleet of paper boxes (I don’t rate her chances).
You Sunk My Battleship!
The planned gameplay is described as “free-to-play naval action MMO that plunges players into the era of the XX century devastating sea wars” across maps upwards of “50x50km” and will feature vessels ranging from the dreadnoughts of the early 20th century to the “dusk of the Artillery Warships”.
“Each machine has its unique combination of firepower, speed, armor, and endurance. A pack of nimble destroyers will tire out their opponents, huge battleships can batter down any target with a couple of main caliber salvos, and aircraft carriers are capable of covering the allies from air or routing an aircraft cell towards the enemy.” -Wargaming.net
The initial public release will see US and Japanese fleets available, with future plans for British, German, Russian, French and Italian vessels, although sadly no submarines.
Bringing it All Together
The website describes the franchise as a “Single MMO Battle Realm”, with claims that the three games in the series—World of Tanks, World of Warplanes and World of Warships—will “soon unite to create the ultimate gaming universe gathering millions of players into a single community of war gamers.”
Sadly, dreams of a single unified battlefield will remain unfulfilled. According to an FAQ on the World of Warships forums, the official response to question, “Will you integrate all 3 projects in one battlefield?” was a succinct, “No, because it’s impossible.”
However, there will be a degree of cross-title integration:
“Common economics will allow the transfer of resources between all three games. A single global map will gather tankmen, pilots and mariners under a common tussle for world domination.” -Wargaming.net
World of Warships is not yet available to play, with a developer forum Q&A revealing that “the alpha is currently planned for around Autumn this year.”
