Gaijin Entertainment has become one of the most frustrating companies in modern gaming. At this point, it feels like the primary goal is no longer creating a fair and enjoyable experience, but extracting as much money as possible from the player base through premium vehicles, premium accounts, battle passes, event grinds, and endless monetization schemes. Every major update seems to introduce another way to spend money while long-standing gameplay issues continue to be ignored.
I play War Thunder for approximately 2–3 hours every single day. The problem is that around 2 hours and 30 minutes of that time is spent getting completely screwed by things that feel entirely outside my control. Instead of learning from mistakes and improving as a player, most matches turn into a cycle of spawning, driving for a few minutes, and then getting instantly deleted by someone sitting on the other side of the map. The amount of time spent actually enjoying the game is microscopic compared to the amount of time spent staring at the death screen wondering how I was even spotted.
One of the biggest issues is the complete failure to address cheating and suspicious gameplay. It is practically impossible to play more than 3–5 minutes without some random level 100 player landing a perfect shot from an absurd distance or instantly knowing exactly where I am. Whether they are cheating, abusing game mechanics, exploiting visibility settings, or simply taking advantage of thousands of hours of map knowledge, the result is exactly the same for the average player: a miserable experience.
The situation for new players is even worse. Ranks I through IV are filled with level 100 veterans who know every camping spot, every sightline, every weak point, and every possible route on every map. New players are expected to compete against people with thousands of hours of experience while driving starter vehicles. The result is that beginners get absolutely demolished from one end of the map to the other before they even understand what killed them. Community discussions have repeatedly complained about experienced players dominating low-tier matches and “seal clubbing” newer players, yet nothing meaningful changes.
Spawn camping has become a joke. Entire matches regularly devolve into one team sitting outside the enemy spawn waiting for free kills. There are countless reports from players describing matches where the outcome is decided within minutes and the rest of the game consists of one side farming the other directly from spawn. Even on Gaijin’s own forums, players have complained for years that spawn camping and poor map design are ruining matches.
The maps themselves often contribute to the problem. Many maps contain ridiculous sightlines, overpowered positions, and routes that allow experienced players to establish control of the battlefield almost immediately. Instead of tactical gameplay, matches often feel like a race to determine which team can begin farming the opposing spawn first.
What makes all of this even more insulting is that Gaijin appears perfectly capable of releasing new premium vehicles, premium packs, and monetized content on a constant basis. New ways to spend money arrive regularly, yet the same complaints about cheating, spawn camping, questionable kills, poor matchmaking, and new-player frustration continue to appear year after year. Many players openly criticize what they see as Gaijin prioritizing revenue over improvements to gameplay systems and player retention.
War Thunder has incredible potential, but it increasingly feels less like a competitive military combat game and more like a monetized grind machine. Many veteran players remain because there is no true competitor to War Thunder, not because they are satisfied with its current state. At some point Gaijin needs to decide whether they want to build a fair and enjoyable experience or continue treating the community as an endless source of revenue while the same core problems continue to drive players away.