TLDR: I love playing this game, but Gaijin constantly makes it frustrating. They're greedy and the company is run by Russians who drink Putin's Koolaid and think Russian vehicles are the best in the entire world and anything produced by the West is inferior and any documents indicating otherwise are unreliable. It ruins the experience for so many players and changes are only made when the player base is wronged so badly that they have to revolt. That time has come again.

War Thunder has been one of my favorite games since I first started playing in 2015. There is no other game out there with the level of realism and modeling that War Thunder has, and that's a large part of what drew me to the game. Vehicles have accurate dimensions, historical camouflages, individually modeled components, and fairly realistic flight models/driving capabilities, and the graphics can make it feel like you're flying in a movie. It has the potential to be a truly magical experience.

Unfortunately, Gaijin Entertainment, the company that owns War Thunder, always finds a way to disappoint the player base. As much as I love this game after over 8,000 hours, I have never once been able to leave a positive review. Gaijin always screws something up out of greed, bias, or disrespectful treatment of their players. While they have gotten better at listening to their players, they still aren't good at it. They just stepped over the very low bar they set for themselves.

Issue list:

Greed:
- There used to be a way to get free premium currency in the game through wagers. You could get one golden eagle wager a month if you logged in every day. It wasn't much, but it was nice. Gaijin took that away a couple years ago so players can no longer get the premium currency without spending money, leaving the best vehicles behind a solid pay wall.
- While it is no longer the case, there was a time when Gaijin removed some ammunition for top tier vehicles (APFSDS rounds) from their starting kit, meaning you had to play the game with the worst round possible to unlock them. The sole purpose for this was to frustrate players into buying premium currency so they could buy the modification because it was just too difficult to play the vehicles without them. This has been fixed in the update that came out on 12/19/23, but it took them well over a year of players being on the verge of a riot for them to fix it.
- Over the years, they kept adding in new vehicles, but they kept increasing the amount of research needed to unlock the vehicles. Players complained and complained, but Gaijin kept increasing and increasing requirements while simultaneously reducing the research players could get because it would force players to spend money to buy $70 premium vehicles in order to research the top tier. This is partially resolved, but it took the entire player base rioting and review bombing War Thunder to bring about this basic change.
-In January of 2022 Gaijin accidentally gave away some premium time to some players due to a bug on their end. They then either charged the players or banned their accounts until they paid for it. Again, it took the player base rioting to resolve this.

Bias (intentional or unintentional)
-Gaijin is currently based in Hungary, it was founded in Russia in 2002 and many, if not most, of the executives are Russian. There is a very obvious pro Russian, anti Western bias in the game. This results in a lack of balance, as well as a lack in the realism and proper modeling that attracts many of the players to this game. The player base constantly calls out Gaijin, but Gaijin constantly ignores this.
-This week, Gaijin has decided that the Abrams tank has not received any armor upgrades during its existence. Players have sent in reports over and over again, but they all get denied. Then Gaijin has the moderators create a post explaining their decision with faulty logic and incomplete/cherry picked facts. The Abrams is currently the worst performing vehicle at its level.
-Gaijin frequently accepts Russian claims unhistorical and inaccurate features on vehicles. They give the Russian vehicles thermal sights they didn't have, or higher quality thermal sights than they actually had. Funny enough, other countries get worse thermal sights than they actually had. They artificially reduce the chance of ammunition exploding in Russian tanks. They added spall liner to a Russian tank because someone sent them a video off of YouTube. However, they have rejected declassified information from the Pentagon on American armor improvements because they deemed that source "unreliable".
-They have given the British Challenger 2 tanks improper ERA for years and ignored multiple attempts to have that corrected. The ERA is able to stop 30mm kinetic rounds from penetrating it from the side, but Gaijin has incorrectly interpreted this as the ERA provides 30mm of protection (which is nothing) on the side, leading it to be useless.
-The new Leopard 2A7V+ has incorrectly modeled armor. Gaijin gave the 2019 vehicle the same armor as the 1991 2a5 prototype.
-Italy's Ariete... just RIP.
-France's Leclerc is given worse armor that the Russian T-64A from 1971.
-Every NATO NATO has an improperly modeled cannon breach that gives it virtually no armor, allowing every NATO tank to penetrated right through the front of the turret. Strangly, this issue is absent on Russian tanks.
-The list frankly goes on, if Russia ever performs poorly then Gaijin decides to give them a buff, and if it's unhistorical then they say it's ok for "balance", but if a NATO tank is performing poorly then Gaijin won't do anything about it because they want it to be "accurate" (even though they ignore facts and it's not accurate).

I wouldn't recommend playing this game, it's an abusive relationship.

TLDR: I love playing this game, but Gaijin constantly makes it frustrating. They're greedy and the company is run by Russians who drink Putin's Koolaid and think Russian vehicles are the best in the entire world and anything produced by the West is inferior and any documents indicating otherwise are unreliable. It ruins the experience for so many players and changes are only made when the player base is wronged so badly that they have to revolt. That time has come again. War Thunder has been one of my favorite games since I first started playing in 2015. There is no other game out there with the level of realism and modeling that War Thunder has, and that's a large part of what drew me to the game. Vehicles have accurate dimensions, historical camouflages, individually modeled components, and fairly realistic flight models/driving capabilities, and the graphics can make it feel like you're flying in a movie. It has the potential to be a truly magical experience. Unfortunately, Gaijin Entertainment, the company that owns War Thunder, always finds a way to disappoint the player base. As much as I love this game after over 8,000 hours, I have never once been able to leave a positive review. Gaijin always screws something up out of greed, bias, or disrespectful treatment of their players. While they have gotten better at listening to their players, they still aren't good at it. They just stepped over the very low bar they set for themselves. Issue list: Greed: - There used to be a way to get free premium currency in the game through wagers. You could get one golden eagle wager a month if you logged in every day. It wasn't much, but it was nice. Gaijin took that away a couple years ago so players can no longer get the premium currency without spending money, leaving the best vehicles behind a solid pay wall. - While it is no longer the case, there was a time when Gaijin removed some ammunition for top tier vehicles (APFSDS rounds) from their starting kit, meaning you had to play the game with the worst round possible to unlock them. The sole purpose for this was to frustrate players into buying premium currency so they could buy the modification because it was just too difficult to play the vehicles without them. This has been fixed in the update that came out on 12/19/23, but it took them well over a year of players being on the verge of a riot for them to fix it. - Over the years, they kept adding in new vehicles, but they kept increasing the amount of research needed to unlock the vehicles. Players complained and complained, but Gaijin kept increasing and increasing requirements while simultaneously reducing the research players could get because it would force players to spend money to buy $70 premium vehicles in order to research the top tier. This is partially resolved, but it took the entire player base rioting and review bombing War Thunder to bring about this basic change. -In January of 2022 Gaijin accidentally gave away some premium time to some players due to a bug on their end. They then either charged the players or banned their accounts until they paid for it. Again, it took the player base rioting to resolve this. Bias (intentional or unintentional) -Gaijin is currently based in Hungary, it was founded in Russia in 2002 and many, if not most, of the executives are Russian. There is a very obvious pro Russian, anti Western bias in the game. This results in a lack of balance, as well as a lack in the realism and proper modeling that attracts many of the players to this game. The player base constantly calls out Gaijin, but Gaijin constantly ignores this. -This week, Gaijin has decided that the Abrams tank has not received any armor upgrades during its existence. Players have sent in reports over and over again, but they all get denied. Then Gaijin has the moderators create a post explaining their decision with faulty logic and incomplete/cherry picked facts. The Abrams is currently the worst performing vehicle at its level. -Gaijin frequently accepts Russian claims unhistorical and inaccurate features on vehicles. They give the Russian vehicles thermal sights they didn't have, or higher quality thermal sights than they actually had. Funny enough, other countries get worse thermal sights than they actually had. They artificially reduce the chance of ammunition exploding in Russian tanks. They added spall liner to a Russian tank because someone sent them a video off of YouTube. However, they have rejected declassified information from the Pentagon on American armor improvements because they deemed that source "unreliable". -They have given the British Challenger 2 tanks improper ERA for years and ignored multiple attempts to have that corrected. The ERA is able to stop 30mm kinetic rounds from penetrating it from the side, but Gaijin has incorrectly interpreted this as the ERA provides 30mm of protection (which is nothing) on the side, leading it to be useless. -The new Leopard 2A7V+ has incorrectly modeled armor. Gaijin gave the 2019 vehicle the same armor as the 1991 2a5 prototype. -Italy's Ariete... just RIP. -France's Leclerc is given worse armor that the Russian T-64A from 1971. -Every NATO NATO has an improperly modeled cannon breach that gives it virtually no armor, allowing every NATO tank to penetrated right through the front of the turret. Strangly, this issue is absent on Russian tanks. -The list frankly goes on, if Russia ever performs poorly then Gaijin decides to give them a buff, and if it's unhistorical then they say it's ok for "balance", but if a NATO tank is performing poorly then Gaijin won't do anything about it because they want it to be "accurate" (even though they ignore facts and it's not accurate). I wouldn't recommend playing this game, it's an abusive relationship.