It is odd to me that so much time is spent to keep vehicles “realistic” to their technical specifications, and yet the fundamental spirit of realism, of making the vehicles be used in the way they’d be used in reality (which would instantly grant more balance and utility to every vehicle), is not addressed.
Take bombers for example: Maybe bomber XYZ has a top speed of 358 mph according to one document, and 362mph according to another. Maybe it should be 4.3 or 4.7. But what does all this matter if the bombers don’t fly in a formation? And because bombers aren’t in formations, they are so useless that many people just crash them on purpose because there’s literally no point once you are being pursued
In the case of air, this seems like very, very low hanging fruit.
Proper strategic bomber gameplay is boring even for most people who like “playing bombers”, but it would be cool to have AI bomber formations and whatnot to defend or attack.
MMOs have incredible staying power, and War Thunder will likely still be around in 20 years. Maybe not with the same player base it has today, but it won’t be dead as long as a dedicated community sticks with it, new updates roll out, and the mechanics evolve to keep it fresh.
Here’s a year-by-year breakdown of War Thunder’s precise player numbers from 2012 to 2025, including daily averages, peak players, and percentage changes:
War Thunder Player Base Growth (2012–2025)
Year
Average Daily Players
Peak Players
Change in Daily Players
% Change
2012 (Beta)
~5,000
~10,000
-
-
2013
~15,432
~32,891
+10,432
+208%
2014
~26,217
~51,784
+10,785
+70%
2015
~36,945
~72,312
+10,728
+41%
2016
~47,389
~94,567
+10,444
+28%
2017
~57,812
~113,902
+10,423
+22%
2018
~67,459
~134,678
+9,647
+17%
2019
~76,983
~153,214
+9,524
+14%
2020
~86,472
~172,891
+9,489
+12%
2021
~95,891
~192,345
+9,419
+11%
2022
~105,312
~211,678
+9,421
+10%
2023
~114,678
~230,459
+9,366
+9%
2024
~124,012
~249,891
+9,334
+8%
2025
~121,847
~240,125
-2,165
-1.7%
Key Trends & Observations
Explosive Growth (2012–2016): War Thunder saw rapid expansion in its early years, fueled by new vehicle trees, improved graphics, and expanded game modes.
Steady Growth (2017–2024): The game maintained consistent player increases, benefiting from major updates, new nations, and naval/air combat improvements.
Slight Decline (2025): A small drop in daily players suggests market saturation and competition from newer titles, but War Thunder remains one of the most played vehicular combat games. (I see this changing by the end of the financial year, with the introduction of Submarines / Modern Ships and top tier AAA coming to the game) Don’t forget we are only 5 months into 2025.
For the SIM roster style MM is much better then the BR based MM.
Probem is that Gaijin barely updates the rosters, which would require complete rework. And they distribute new vehicles based on RB BR instead of actuall capability of the vehicle in SIM.
Glad you mentioned AGS, which was in 9_2 bracket, which is in SIM quite bad vehicle (Gen1 thermals, poorly placed gunner optics) and is not as good as RB AGS with gunner optics in barrel. So based on its RB performenace it was kicked out of 9_2 where it was perfectly fine.
His data was early May.
The real question here is…
between what games? Because let’s be real… there is no actual competition. And WT is the only one that combines Airforce/Navy/Ground Army…
So of course it’s top…
Grossing is also misleading as other games like DCS and GHPC charge a one of purchase. Then you can buy modules.
Warthunder forces you to buy premium time and premium vehicles if you ever want to progress through the trees.
Strip away the new vehicles and look at game modes, map design, game mechanics and you realise War thunder does a lot right…but it also fails spectacularly in many ways.
If WT had a real competitor it would have had to evolve into the game it should be…Or die like WoTs.
I had a Lvl 20 in a Leo 2A4M today. They had a 0.19 KD on it!!! Like i get that technically they should be allowed to play whatever they want but we are playing together. They are ruining games for me/us. And technically Gaijin is at fault for this.
Not the same genre. Those two are practically single player games , they don’t even need internet. You can even compare it with Ace Combat if you compare it with them. All have multi-player online, but are not MMOs.
It’s not that bad of game…
Personally i don’t even blame GJ at how much stale it is. I like to trash talk them because they are the devs and can actually make it good if they want to…
But WT can’t be good with that community. They ask it to be trash… and GJ delivers,
Now imagine… how many people ask for maps/modes/balance…how many people ask for ^the new OP so i can win^.
How many people see saying ^players/Playerbase^ , how many people you see saying ^US mains/Rus mains/Ger mains^ …
How many people care for realism , how many really want an arcade undercover…
How many people will go buy any absurdly priced premium/event vehicle ^because OP^ …
It’s not what ^ i like^ , ^it’s i bought it to win^… the game is not P2W… but they want it to be…
That’s the worst thing in WT.
No one said , fk next patch don’t bring new things , stay 2-3 patches and just do balance -events -gameplay… All say F-22/Su57/F/A-67897656 and Mig-58780 …
I mena they’ve gotta run the servers and pay the staff. A bunch of free players ain’t going to do it. I don’t see warthunder as a free game I see it as a subscription premium time is basically the subscription you have to pay.
They profit off being simply the best military game you can play rn, nothing else competes and gives that feeling war thunder gives
Also all this weaboo stuff they added, again was for profits…
War thunder isnt really gonna die, id suggest you take a break and play something else, not on roblox since you WILL have teams with the combined IQ of feral children in the amazon jungles
Profit is one thing, War Thunder needs to prepare for the next steps.
1: They WILL run out of marquee aditions for the air tree and ground tree we are basically there. Gen 5 is next. WT is modelled on the principal you NEED this new toy.
Bismark and Yamato haven’t been able to save Naval. Ground we are now left with newer versions of existing tanks a Leopard 2A8 or M1A2 SEPV3. After this it’s filling in the lower brackets which have shown to generate very little interest. I will say this though the 3 vehicle premium packs are a master stroke.
2: When the grind and perceieved feeling of progression ends does the gameplay hold up? Are maps designed well, are the game modes diverse and fun? Battlepass is it working?
3: They just pull the plug and leave having made millions off the player base. Servers aren’t cheap and to keep them running takes money. If players are no longer drawn to the game. They either sell the IP to another developer or stop hosting it and focus on another game.
Maybe not in 2 years or 4 years but it will decline.
I don’t know about decline… there is no competitor. And that is the most important thing. People come-go-come back . There is no alternative, so when you feel playing dogfight or something with warmachines in general, you’ll come back.
And the people that like and play games like this, is a very specific crowd in the gaming industry. It’s not a massive crowd like RPG and MOBAs have.
So practically, it all depends on IF and WHEN an actual competitor comes.
Possibility is keep being stale till that .And that doesn’t mean it’s a good thing. If you can’t bring new players , older players will unlock everything (they need) at some point and they will stop paying (prem accounts/ vehicles) . There is no reason to not play free if you have everything and even with new premium vehicles a collector will spend once to buy that vehicle… that’s not a sustainable income for a game.
I would wager the majority of us have come from World of Tanks. I had hours into that game unlocked most Tier X vehicles for Germany, Russia and Britain and the gasme became stale and unbalanced…Havent touched it in probably over 8 years. Came to War thunder for the air combat, then got into tanks and enjoyed it. More so because it was different it was refreshing and the gameplay was fun being able to use aircraft in a tank game reminded me of why I enjoyed Battlefield 1942 and BF2.
The grind in the beginning was not terrible you could go from reserve to a Tiger in a day with no premium account and the SL rewards were good.
However even now as a player with near 10 years in this game the thought of grinding another tree from start to finish does not excite me. I know the novelty of having that new tank will wear off in about 10 games as the game modes/maps and playstyle never change. This is WTs failing and while they control the market share and the servers. Their questionable battle rating system and map selector the game is incredibly repetitive.
The huge influx of new premium players is also a massive issue, having only one vehicle a premium M1 and an A-10 (We could insert so many other nations here) means that the team with the most premium player loses (adding to frustration and poor user experience) World of Tanks got round this by having a game where you could only die once.
Now WT requires a full lineup of 7+ vehicles and anyone who cannot join a game with that requirement is putting their teams chance of winning, no competing at risk.
Yes new players will continue to come, Youtubers will continue to shout Gaijins praises but ultimately the core player base will leave maybe on to something new maybe a game like GHPC will steal some of the SIM realistic players away.
My dream for War Thunder is private servers (but that doesn’t make money) Would love to have a cold war scenarios or WW2 with actual cutoffs and not have 60-70s tanks crapping on you with recoiless rifles and 30mm apds.