War Thunder is the largest free-to-play multiplayer online game featuring military vehicles from a period spanning from the years before the Second World War until present time. Aviation, ground vehicles, and naval forces fight together in one game and even in one battle, just as the real-life battles were fought. The appearance and characteristics of the vehicles in War Thunder are historically accurate, and their damage models are physically based.

In War Thunder, you will find more than 2,500 recreated models of aircraft, helicopters, naval vessels, and both wheeled and tracked armoured vehicles. We are constantly working on adding more units to the game. New updates with modern prototypes and with models of vehicles from both WWII and the Cold War periods are released regularly. You can find the list of all currently available vehicles on the wiki-page: wiki.warthunder.com

You are free to download and play the game right away without any restrictions or subscription fees.

No, you need a permanent internet connection in order to play War Thunder. You can choose the server that suits you best (Russia, Europe, America, Asia) in the game mode selection menu.

The great diversity of missions and modes allows players to choose their desired level of difficulty. The simplified Arcade mode best suits rookie warriors who want a quick tutorial in combat and winning battles. Realistic Battles and Simulator Battles, on the other hand, are tailored to those who wish for maximum historical accuracy. All three modes see players fighting each other in team battles while completing objectives that include capturing and holding special points or destroying/defending designated targets.

Go to the “Events and Tournaments” section if you wish to participate in combat with unconventional conditions some of which include re-enactments of real historic battles. The list of these battles is constantly updated. Players can also fight against AI-controlled enemies either in the Historical and Dynamic Campaigns or together with other people in the cooperative PvE Assault missions. For lovers of historical battles, War Thunder also has a special mode called “World War”.

The game also has User Missions, which are created by the players themselves. You can download these at your leisure from live.warthunder.com. 

Last but not least, you can head over to the Training Ground to create all kinds of gameplay scenarios with the game parameters and available vehicles of your choice.

Yes, you can invite your friends to the game, assemble a squad of up to four people, take part in battles together, and get extra rewards.

In most game modes, the maps are designed for 32 players split into two teams. In certain events, the total number of players may reach 64 people. You can read more about the allocation of players among teams in our article about matchmaking.

In combined battles, players fight together either with tanks and aircraft/helicopters or with ships and aircraft. Anti-air units such as SPAAGs and others provide a solid line of defence for allied armoured vehicles against aerial strikes, while a bomber can prove to be handy when you need to sink an enemy destroyer in a naval battle.

The only purpose of the Gaijin.Net Agent is to keep track of updates for War Thunder or other games developed by Gaijin Entertainment and refresh them to the latest version, thus saving you time and effort. The Gaijin.Net Agent is safe and harmless. It only works with game files and has no access to a users’ personal files.

You can enable/disable automatic updates by loading the game launcher and then pressing on the wrench icon in the top-right corner of the window.

Players using Steam can also update and launch the client through their game library. However, we recommend that you use the auto-update feature and launch the game via the original launcher.

No, you cannot win simply by paying money, but you can speed up the leveling process and gain access to a wider range of vehicles (which are just as powerful). With real-life money, you may purchase Golden Eagles – in-game currency that can be used to speed up crew training, as well as research new vehicles and their modifications. 

You can also buy a premium account with Golden Eagles, which lets you earn more Silver Lions and Research Points for each battle, and this also allows you to unlock new vehicles and upgrades for them earlier.

Lastly, with Golden Eagles you can buy premium vehicles which come prepackaged with all upgrades. But they aren’t any better than regular vehicles – these are just rare models, like Australian aircraft in the UK research-tree.

Of course! The game supports many gaming devices including different gamepads, joysticks, head tracking and VR systems such as Oculus Rift and many more. For your convenience, we have specially designed the Mouse Aiming mode, which enables players, with the help of the Virtual Instructor, to perform the majority of manoeuvres in most game modes with their mouse only.

You can see the War Thunder system requirements for supported operating systems on this page - System Requirements

At this current moment, the game is available in English, Russian, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Polish, Italian, Romanian, Hungarian, Serbian, Belarusian, Ukrainian,Turkish, Korean and Japanese. You can find the complete list of available languages in the game launcher.

No, you can download the game from the PS Store for free and play it without any restrictions.

Yes, PS Plus owners get a 40% Research Points and 75% Silver Lion Booster for 10 battles each month, plus a unique P-36 aircraft variant and another unique decal for decorating their vehicles.

PS Plus subscribers have access to a special gift pack in the PlayStation™Store, it's updated 4 times a year, so you can obtain a new gift every three months. This pack includes 5 boosters granting +75% research points for 10 missions; 5 boosters granting +75% Silver Lions for 10 missions, as well as a new unique decal with each new pack.

Yes, you are playing on the same server and can even form squads (up to 4 people) to play together regardless of the user’s platform.

You have to create a new account for the PS4 or PS5 (should be a single one for both PlayStation generations). You cannot transfer your progress and purchases from another platform to your PlayStation. However, you can link the War Thunder account created on PlayStation to your email and use it on the PC version, thus keeping your progress. You can read about this in detail here. here.

Your War Thunder account is linked to the PSN account that was first used to launch the game. Because PSN accounts cannot be transferred between regions, you will have to create a new one for each new region.

You can use any USB-compatible device - just plug them in to system

Yes, it is used for head tracking so the player can look around in-game without using the controller. It can be enabled in the game options and works only in cockpit view for planes.

You can purchase Golden Eagles and Advanced Packs through the PlayStation Store - use the “Store” button in the upper right corner of the hangar screen. A linked account is able to purchase Golden Eagles both in the PlayStation®Store and the Gaijin.net store on any browser.

Yes, you can. On PS4 Pro, the game supports 4K, as well as hi-res shadows and lighting (HDR).

Players who previously owned War Thunder on the PS4 have access to both versions of the game on their PlayStation 5, and may accidentally launch an older version in backwards compatibility mode instead of the native one with higher FPS, graphical settings etc. If you own the PS4 and PS5 versions of the same game, here's how to switch between them: From the Game’s Home Screen, go to the Game Library. Select the game and press X. Select the [...] button on the screen to view options. Select the version of the game you want to download or play. Here's a tip: If you are unsure of what version of the game you are viewing on this screen: "PS4" appears beside the game's title at the top of the screen. The PS5 version only shows the title in this area.

War Thunder has a special programme that supports the creation of user content. Participants of the programme can add their own user content to the game and receive remuneration for it. You can learn more about the programme on our wiki page or from our Contribution Agreement.

We can officially state that the player database has never been compromised and any rumours of such are false. User login data is not grouped in any kind of ‘database’, so the breach of any database is not possible.

User authorization in War Thunder is a subject to a secure salted hash algorithm, these are near impossible to breach even if a malicious individual could even access any player database.

Unfortunately, some of our players still use the same or similar logins and passwords to access different systems, which gives an attacker the best opportunity to steal information from unsecured sources and use it to compromise careless players’ accounts.

We advise you to use a unique complex password for your War Thunder account; it will greatly improve your personal data security. You are also able to enable a two-step authorisation for your account.

To increase the protection of your account from hacking and theft attempts, we have implemented a two-step authorisation system. To enable the two-step authorisation, you will need to login at the general login page located at: https://login.gaijin.net/.

All movements and player interactions like collisions, damage etc. are calculated on the server side. It means that even if corresponding parameters are modified on the client side, the cheater will not actually gain any advantages like invulnerability, increased damage or anything similar. Anyone pretending to distribute software that gives such advantages is probably a fraudster looking to steal your money or compromise your personal data.

We have also integrated the Easy Anti-Cheat system, which prevents cheating and fraud, in our game.

Online games, like any other programs, may contain errors that users can exploit to gain some benefits. We do our best to fix such exploits as fast as possible, but sometimes new ones appear. If you find a potentially exploitable game bug, you should immediately report it to one of our moderators or administrators on the forums via a private message. Using them to obtain any advantages is strictly prohibited by the EULA and may cause permanent blockage of your War Thunder account.

Follow this link to download the Linux version of the game. Please note that War Thunder only supports 64-bit systems. You can also download and launch the Linux version of the game on Steam.

Follow the download link to get the ‘wt_launcher_linux_x.x.x.x.tar.gz’ file. You must then do the following:

Unzip the ‘wt_launcher_linux_x.x.x.x.tar.gz’ file in the folder where you want to install War Thunder.

In the folder where you unpacked the archive select file “run” and launch it.

The game launcher will start.

Yes. You can continue using the Wine version of the game even if you installed a native client within the same folder.

You need the most recent proprietary drivers for your video card. If something's gone wrong, and the game does not launch at all because of invalid settings, you can always try to run it using the minimum possible settings. To do so, just go to the War Thunder folder (i.e. ~/Games/WarThunder) and run: ./aces -safe -mode:windowed -resolution:1280x720

-safe - will run the game with "minimum" settings

-mode:windowed - will run in windowed mode

-mode:fullscreen - will run in full screen mode

-resolution:WidthxHeight - will run the game with specific valid resolutions where WidthxHeight is needed resolution, i.e. 1920x1080 or 1280x720

The game is available for free to all Xbox One, Xbox One S, Xbox One X, and Xbox Series X|S players with an active Xbox Live Gold subscription. Earlier versions of the Xbox consoles are not supported. An optimized version of the game is available on the Xbox Series X|S which performs better image quality and runs consistently in 4K @60 FPS on the Xbox Series X and 1440p @60 FPS on the Xbox Series S.

No, you can play without an active Xbox Live Gold subscription.

Yes, sure!

Yes, you can use a mouse and keyboard. You can also use the Thrustmaster T.Flight Hotas One flightstick.

No, Xbox players have to create another account to play War Thunder. You can not transfer your progress and purchases from other platforms to Xbox, but you may bind your Xbox account to the login email and use this account for PC, sharing your ingame progress and purchases. Learn more.

Xbox players have the option to enable cross-platform gameplay. If the option is on, they are able to play with users of other gaming platforms. If cross-platform gameplay is off, they will only play with other Xbox players. The option is available anytime before entering battle, You may also add players from other platforms to your friend list, and play in squads with them.

The following exclusive vehicle packs are available in the Xbox Store: -F4U-4B Corsair fighter aircraft of Marine Fighting Squadron 214 -XM-1 Chrysler tank -M5A1 tank of 5th Canadian Armored division

War Thunder is the same on all platforms and includes the same features and uses the same server. However, cross-platform restrictions do apply.

Xbox users who have not enabled the cross-platform option will only have access to Arcade air and ground battles.

Yes, War Thunder is optimized for Xbox One X with 4K resolution support, as well as enhanced lighting and shadows (HDR).

You can report bugs or issues at community.gaijin.net, or send feedback and other WT related information on any of our social channels.

● Facebook : facebook.com/WarThunder

● Twitter : twitter.com/WarThunder

● Telegram : t.me/warthunder

● YouTube channel : youtube.com/user/gaijinent

● Subscribe to our Instagram instagram.com/warthunder

Use the content available on our LIVE portal, where players submit their own creations like new camouflages, crosshairs, missions, models and many other cool things. And be sure to visit our War Thunder Wiki often – it’s a mine of useful information.