Initially intended as a side project to The Last Stand: Dead Zone (TLS: DZ), Warfare Online (WO) was initially revealed on April 15, 2016, after development started two years prior. Inspiration for the game was for a continuation of the Warfare 1917 and Warfare 1944 series of flash games, although launching on Steam for ease of handling customer payment support, along with it being a better longer term platform rather than sites such as Armor Games.

Starting mid-December, closed beta started, and upon the start of beta, there was only one map, Alpine (the one with the large central bridge).

The WO Discord Server was created by Manuhart (Marshall). It is a place where new players come to talk about the game and discuss gameplay with experienced players. Used by Con and the development team to gather feedback and bug reports by the players in beta and early access.

Join Link: https://discord.gg/QjQc4DB

At the start, it was unbalanced, there were several notable standouts as OP in the metagame at this time:

Snipers: Due to Alpine being a long range map, range dominated. Snipers had a ridiculously low aim time and fast RoF, allowing an entrenched sniper squad to dominate anything infantry that came to them. Their aim time was increased and the snipers were brought into line.

Rapid Armor Response: Now known as Rush Armor (there was a renaming of many cards due to the words "Supply", "Rapid", "Response", etc. being used in too many of them that it was confusing to differentiate cards in conversation), this card was initially a 50 cost craft, 6 supply to play. By fitting 2 in a deck, you would make a rush deck with LAV as meatshield in the front and tank behind it, rush with infantry. Later nerfed to elite quality and 8 supply cost, making rushing with this a good tactic rather than a gamewinning tactic. I was the first to pioneer RAR, and the others who use it have followed suit after seeing it being used on them.

Rush Decks: Things like Rapid Infantry Response (Rush Infantry), Assault Team, LAV Support, Fast Mover support, Armor Column, etc. all made it a very unit spammy meta, all were changed from there. Panda was the player that formally discovered the problem and prominence of rush decks, he bought 220~ supply boxes and used response force (could spawn rifle squads 1:1 with no limit back then) and numerous spam cards to make known of this tactic.

Riflemen: Back then, range was king, riflemen could have the M14 EBR and SVK-12 for the respective nations, in addition, undermount grenade launchers could fire on units in cover, killing efficiently (also blows up yellow cover). Their RoF was very high and their antitank capabilities rivaled AT teams.

Beginning in February 2017, the game started to take more shape and redefine itself after the nerfing of the rush decks, for a new meta has risen, the defensive war of attrition. Some people have gone as far as using structural improvements (+50 outpost health, +2 starting supp asset cost) as a turtle tactic (don't ever use structural improvements, it's terrible).

...But then there was light: v0.20

This update drastically reduced the cover bonus granted by light and heavy cover. Before this, MG teams with entrenched + def doc + reinforced defenses could have taken up to 30 seconds to get taken out by multiple attackers. AT teams were invincible terminators against vehicles since vehicle damage was so low.

Now, vehicles dominated the meta with massive buffs. Following patches scaled the vehicles back, but this patch has put an end to the turtle tactic.

During this time, many players stood out:
Format: IGN (Steam Player Name):

Blitzcraig (Blitzcraigg): Good player, infantry focus, likes to try many configurations within the game. One of the veterans of old.

Chaos (General Chaos): Older player since the start of the game, RUS main, good player and continually learns and improves as time goes on.

Charlie: All infantry build, best infantry player in the game, very hard to beat with any strategy.
"Charlie rules the night"

Geras: MG + AT + 3x vehicle, pioneer of the 3x vehicle deck, mains RUS, one of the best players in the game, his vehicle strategy combined with infantry and support assets can counter and defeat most builds in the game.

GirthQQuakes: I have seen him in Early Access, but his vehicle spam strat (Iater 4:1) combo'ed with Beyond the Wire (prenerf, gave 3 reinforcements to all units back then) meant that I lost to him many times due to my strategy not being rushy enough. Eventually got my win. Great player, knowledgeable person.

Greywolf (Ngo Khai HD): Very good infantry focus player, 4:1 build with the M1A1 abrams tank, while not on the forums/discord often, he knows which cards to use to bring ultimate victory.

Panda: The elusive Panda, not seen much outside of beta, he whaled on microtransaction (220 box opening) and discovered the rush deck tactic, a no-thought-required tactic of mindless unit spamming. After conversations with Con, the cards that spawned units received nerfs, usually in the form of cost increases. Innovator and changer of the meta early on.

Upon the game's release, to be immediately noticed is an increased gameflow, but as of now, not much is to be said, the story is to be built upon as it unfolds.

Posted during July, Con Artist Games will be stopping updates to Warfare Online due to the lack of development funds, where server costs exceeded revenue, shutdown of the servers was announced to be October 1, 2017.

On October 1st, Con Artist Games officially shut down the Warfare Online servers, citing the net loss of income and being unable to keep the servers up for this reason.

As it stands, for the people that enjoyed it, it has been a fun ride playing with you all.

- MW3ProPiper, CAS (Combined Arms Specialist, or Close Air Support, both were effective)