Is this a game I would recommend to people. I think? I've had this game since 2015 and between 2 different accounts I have put in well over 1000 hours into this game. This is one of my most played games and yet I still wasn't sure about recommending it. I love the concept of the game, a WWII (At least back when I started) fighting game with lots airplanes and tanks, (There are now boats but I haven't played enough to review them yet).


Airplanes:
The airplanes are amazing, I always enjoyed flying in this game. That was until I came into higher tiers. In lower tiers you can have fun, just play around and enjoy yourself but in higher tiers (4+) you start running into tryhards. People who have hundreds of hours trying their hardest to win. This would be a problem in Realistic Battles (RB), but in Arcade Battles (AB), they just ruin the fun. You might ask then why are they not in RB? Because of the cue time. AB battle are usually <3 minute cue time while RB is >5 minutes. And RB battles are something else. The plane flys more realistically but you spend the first 15-20ish minutes of the game just climbing/flying to meet your enemy just to be shot down by the first enemy you see because they are a whole battle rating (BR) above you. Another thing with the airplanes in this game is that the fights are fighter orientated not bomber. Good luck trying to fly a bomber. In AB bombers are all but useless while in RB they have very little chance for survival. You spawn in the air and fly to your bombing point praying that you don't get shot down by a fighter that climbed up to meet you. If you survive you drop your bombs and fly back to your airfield to resupply with bombs. The problem with this is that you are now at ground level and you have no chance of climbing up high enough to avoid fighters so you will likely not be able to make a second bombing run.


Tanks:
While I don't have much experience with tanks I have played them enough to understand how their games play out. Their AB and RB battles are very much the same with cue times with the tanks RB sometimes being shorter. A major problem with tank battle is people changing their graphical setting to low. Doing this removes all shrubs and most tree making it a lot easier for the enemy to see you because while you may think that you are carefully hidden in a bush the enemy see you just sitting in the open. Another problem is spawn camping. Players will rush towards each others spawn as fast as possible because there is nothing stopping them. There will be a ring around the other teams spawn that they can't go in so they will just sit outside of it and wait for the players to spawn because while they can't go into their spawn they still can shoot into it. Another problem with tanks I feel is the parts research. I like the idea of the more you play a vehicle the better it gets, but with tanks you don't even get a fire extinguisher to start with so if you catch fire even once you're dead.


Other notes:
The match making is horrible. You almost will always be pitted against vehicles that are much better than you. Because of this they can kill you in one shot very quickly ruining the fun. Another overall problem with the game is the grinding. Maybe some people may like the grind, but I don't You can't go straight down a tech tree you have to get a certain amount of vehicles from that tier before you can move to the next tier. This isn't a problem in lower tiers but once you get farther up and the vehicles become much more expensive it can take a very long time to even get another vehicle. This is seen best with the helicopters. To even be able to research the very first helicopter you have to either get to a tier 5 tank or plane, and once you do that you can then start to research the helicopter. But that takes millions of research point to get that far. Their is also top tier premiums (Buyable vehicles). This means that someone who has never even touched the game before can get the best vehicles right away without even knowing how to play. The vehicle updates are something too. Every so often they will add new vehicles to the game but those vehicles will almost always be top tier vehicle or premiums so many of the lower tiers don't get updates. While I know there are so many pre-mid war vehicles that they can add it does get frustrating that all the new vehicles are top tiers that take a long grind to get to.


Why did I still recommend this game?
Simple, I love this game. While i'm lucky if I play more that an hour or two a week this game is amazing. You can have so much fun playing especially if you have friends to play with. While I don't know if I would recommend top tier games, tiers 1-4 can be absolutely amazing. And if you get board of AB or RB there are custom battles. Do you want to just fly around and not worry about repair costs (Which can get extremely high in higher tiers), do you want to shoot down a jet with a biplane, then custom battles are for you. While sometimes they will be full of people in AAA sitting around shooting down anything that flys so you can't do anything, there are good games where you can have an absolute blast.

Is this a game I would recommend to people. I think? I've had this game since 2015 and between 2 different accounts I have put in well over 1000 hours into this game. This is one of my most played games and yet I still wasn't sure about recommending it. I love the concept of the game, a WWII (At least back when I started) fighting game with lots airplanes and tanks, (There are now boats but I haven't played enough to review them yet). Airplanes: The airplanes are amazing, I always enjoyed flying in this game. That was until I came into higher tiers. In lower tiers you can have fun, just play around and enjoy yourself but in higher tiers (4+) you start running into tryhards. People who have hundreds of hours trying their hardest to win. This would be a problem in Realistic Battles (RB), but in Arcade Battles (AB), they just ruin the fun. You might ask then why are they not in RB? Because of the cue time. AB battle are usually <3 minute cue time while RB is >5 minutes. And RB battles are something else. The plane flys more realistically but you spend the first 15-20ish minutes of the game just climbing/flying to meet your enemy just to be shot down by the first enemy you see because they are a whole battle rating (BR) above you. Another thing with the airplanes in this game is that the fights are fighter orientated not bomber. Good luck trying to fly a bomber. In AB bombers are all but useless while in RB they have very little chance for survival. You spawn in the air and fly to your bombing point praying that you don't get shot down by a fighter that climbed up to meet you. If you survive you drop your bombs and fly back to your airfield to resupply with bombs. The problem with this is that you are now at ground level and you have no chance of climbing up high enough to avoid fighters so you will likely not be able to make a second bombing run. Tanks: While I don't have much experience with tanks I have played them enough to understand how their games play out. Their AB and RB battles are very much the same with cue times with the tanks RB sometimes being shorter. A major problem with tank battle is people changing their graphical setting to low. Doing this removes all shrubs and most tree making it a lot easier for the enemy to see you because while you may think that you are carefully hidden in a bush the enemy see you just sitting in the open. Another problem is spawn camping. Players will rush towards each others spawn as fast as possible because there is nothing stopping them. There will be a ring around the other teams spawn that they can't go in so they will just sit outside of it and wait for the players to spawn because while they can't go into their spawn they still can shoot into it. Another problem with tanks I feel is the parts research. I like the idea of the more you play a vehicle the better it gets, but with tanks you don't even get a fire extinguisher to start with so if you catch fire even once you're dead. Other notes: The match making is horrible. You almost will always be pitted against vehicles that are much better than you. Because of this they can kill you in one shot very quickly ruining the fun. Another overall problem with the game is the grinding. Maybe some people may like the grind, but I don't You can't go straight down a tech tree you have to get a certain amount of vehicles from that tier before you can move to the next tier. This isn't a problem in lower tiers but once you get farther up and the vehicles become much more expensive it can take a very long time to even get another vehicle. This is seen best with the helicopters. To even be able to research the very first helicopter you have to either get to a tier 5 tank or plane, and once you do that you can then start to research the helicopter. But that takes millions of research point to get that far. Their is also top tier premiums (Buyable vehicles). This means that someone who has never even touched the game before can get the best vehicles right away without even knowing how to play. The vehicle updates are something too. Every so often they will add new vehicles to the game but those vehicles will almost always be top tier vehicle or premiums so many of the lower tiers don't get updates. While I know there are so many pre-mid war vehicles that they can add it does get frustrating that all the new vehicles are top tiers that take a long grind to get to. Why did I still recommend this game? Simple, I love this game. While i'm lucky if I play more that an hour or two a week this game is amazing. You can have so much fun playing especially if you have friends to play with. While I don't know if I would recommend top tier games, tiers 1-4 can be absolutely amazing. And if you get board of AB or RB there are custom battles. Do you want to just fly around and not worry about repair costs (Which can get extremely high in higher tiers), do you want to shoot down a jet with a biplane, then custom battles are for you. While sometimes they will be full of people in AAA sitting around shooting down anything that flys so you can't do anything, there are good games where you can have an absolute blast.