Armored Warfare Review (Xbox One)

Introduction

Armored Warfare is a modern tactical-based multiplayer experience. You can play PVE which consists of different story elements from the Armored Warfare universe. You can either play this mode with friends or be queued up with random players online and team up with them. There are also PVP modes you can play as well which cover 15v15 tank objective-based missions. The game also draws from many history elements despite it being in a different universe. So, what makes Armored Warfare interesting? This is what we will be covering here. 

Armored Warfare is available for free on the Xbox Store.

Story

The story of Armored Warfare is different when you initially start up the game for the first time you get your first mission. But you might notice during the initial startup that you don’t receive much information besides the task at hand. Armored Warfare does have an extensive lore though, in the late 2010s, the United States and many other countries found themselves in constant war. Europe was seeing the worse of the conflicts – constant threats being made against them, constant bombings and inner political disagreements. The overall war inside Europe made the different countries poor and the corporations wealthier. Wealthier to the point that no surrounding countries could touch them anymore. Soon they had enough money to bribe anyone going after them, during a time period like that you need all the money, food, shelter and security you can get.

After most of the countries submitted and gave away everything they could just to get by. These new powerful corporations found themselves exempt from paying things like local taxes and income taxes. Naturally, people wanted to flock to these new corporations. But they didn’t receive the same rights they had before. You were a contracted worker, you had no rights, any complaints were left on deaf ears. You do the work and get food and water it was as simple as that. But the war wasn’t over yet, these companies wanted more control, so they eventually fought each other. Building up their own private owned armies to do various tasks for them. Some of these units respected the laws of warfare, while others did what they wanted and went for the kill. In the Armored Warfare universe, you play throughout this history in different episodes and snapshots in history. While you won’t find this extensive history too much in game – this lore is still being created and placed in different events and characters.

Gameplay

Armored Warfare has a simple interface to draw you in, but with a closer look, you can tell it has rich mechanics. When you first start up the game, you might notice it has a similar look to a mobile game setup. It shows your tanks, other vehicles you can buy, commanders, your progress, daily challenges and the store. There’s a lot to cover so I will break things up to make things easier.

PVE

The actual gameplay of Armored Warfare is fun, if you play PVE mode you can either play with random players or your friends. You are sent out as a team of 5 to do various things depending on your mission, but the missions refresh every few minutes, so you don’t always play the same mission. One thing I don’t like is that you can’t pick your mission, missions are based by your tank tiers. So, tier 1 through 5 has the beginning missions and introduction mechanics, while tier 6 through 8 has the medium-challenging levels. Then tiers 9 and 10 are the hardest levels out there, where you have multiple AI tanks with precise aiming.

Doing things like this has its pros and cons, now if you want to play a certain tank you like in a lower tier and a higher challenge level that isn’t possible. The game chooses your difficulty based by tier, this also has its pros and cons on PVP as well that I will explain later. You can’t choose your missions in the lower tiers, you just have to wait until the lists refresh to a mission you prefer. This also means if a tank you like is in a lower tier you have to play easier missions. So, you don’t have the option to challenge yourself, this also goes if you want to play a higher leveled tank, you would have to do harder missions. Now the missions themselves at lower levels are easy but chill as well. This way you can learn the mechanics and more about the different armored types in the game. The more challenging missions are an actual challenge, especially if you play long enough to get a tier 10 tank. Throughout the missions, you’ll notice secondary objectives you can do to earn extra exp or money.

Economy

This section will cover the basic structure of Armored Warfare, how to level up, what to aim for, etc. Depending on if you bought tank packs or not your experience will be different. But starting out with the free version of Armored Warfare will get you at least 3 different tanks. You can check their stats in the menu to see their armor, ammo types, weapons, etc. You also will have the option to look at your commanders and crew. Commanders and crew members are the inner workings of your tank. They offer different bonuses for it, for example, one commander might give you double XP for every match. To gain more skills you have to level up your commander and crew by playing more and gaining XP. Your tanks can also have different medals placed on them that give various boosts as well. You can also buy different parts for your tanks to improve things like movement speed or penetration damage. You buy things with credits, which is the basic currency of Armored Warfare. You will need this for everything you plan to do in the game. Earning credits in the game feels simple and easy, I never felt cheated when I did a mission – they give you a decent amount for every mission or PVP match.

The premium currency in this game is gold, which is used to buy premium tanks, premium time, loot boxes, exclusive tanks etc. Loot boxes and gold in this game don’t grant advantages in this game. This is more of a pay-to-progress payment system, although some people still think otherwise because you can buy gold and XP. I personally haven’t run into any unfair advantages online. Everything as of now unless they update the game and add different stuff is purely for progression. Even the premium tanks have weaknesses thanks to the ammo system.

Your tank earns reputation which is the XP of this game, however, there is also XP you can earn on your tank that you can only utilize if you have gold. You can also transfer gold into credits, so you can see how the progression system comes in with gold. You can also upgrade the basic abilities and armor your tank has, once you fully level up a tank you can buy into the next tier. Each shop owner has different tanks from different nations, but you aren’t fighting for those nations. The story is different this time around, so if you want a certain nations’ tank lineup, you might notice that they are spread out to different dealers randomly.

PVP

Now the PVP in this game is a mixed bag for a lot of people, for starters, you can only access it at tier 5. Which I don’t like, but I can also see why they did it this way. It’s tier based, so if you have a tier 10 tank, for example, you may not find a lot of people. This game isn’t played a lot for PVP, but people do enjoy it. The matchmaking system will also lower the player count if it can’t find 15v15, so you won’t be sitting there all day like other games. The game modes you might play in PVP range from controlling enemy points or controlling valuable points of interest on the map that gives the team controlling it an advantage. So, you will need to work together with your team but also have the right ammo types. Each tank has a standard set of AP rounds, but you also can have heat sensitive rounds or more explosive rounds. These rounds give the game a different learning curve that isn’t introduced in earlier tiers. So, you might be caught off guard at first playing.

Graphics and Audio

The graphics in this game aren’t too bad, but they won’t win any rewards either. If you play on an Xbox One X you won’t be getting enhanced graphics at least not right now. Now, if you play on an original Xbox One your performance might suffer a bit, but the game should still run well. You might run through some trees and bushes, but the game still reacts to your powerful tanks as it should. The audio isn’t too bad either, with powerful percussion sounds and good armor piercing noises when you pierce armor.

Overall, I give the audio and graphics a good pass, however, be mindful of the glitches and visual errors that occur sometimes.

Conclusion

Armored Warfare is a solid modern tank tactical-shooter, however, there are some issues on the Xbox One version I must address. The game has a disconnection issue that makes it impossible some days to play. While other days it’s manageable but still annoying. There are also different UI bugs when it comes to reputation not being used when you use it on a tank. Or trying to go into a multiplayer match with the right tiered tank but the game kicking you out anyway. The game is free, so I recommend giving it a shot, but I would hold off on paying for the other versions or buying gold if you want to. In the state the game is right now, it will lose people, this will also affect matches too since you can’t play online. I will update the review as time goes on since the developers seem active with the game.