War Thunder’s Map Rotation Is Failing

War Thunder’s Map Rotation Is Failing

For years, War Thunder has been known for its intense vehicular combat, attention to detail, and a vast selection of vehicles spanning many nations. But as the game continues to evolve, a frustrating trend has emerged: map rotation is increasingly skewed toward close-quarters engagements. And for players who enjoy playing minor nations—such as Sweden, Italy, Japan, France or Israel—this shift is proving to be more than just a nuisance. It’s become a serious game balance issue.

The Close Quarters Problem

Recent updates and rotations have brought back or emphasized smaller, urbanized maps like Cargo Port, Sweden, Spaceport, Golden Quarry, American Desert, Ardennes, Middle East, Test Site-227, Seversk, Iberian Castle, Japan and 38th Parallel.
These maps funnel players into tight corridors and chokepoints where mobility and stealth are nearly impossible. While these maps may be exciting for brawlers and heavy tanks like the IS-series or the Tiger II, they drastically limit the effectiveness of vehicles that rely on flanking tactics and positioning.

Unfortunately, many of the vehicles from minor nations were designed historically—and function in-game—as agile, lightly-armored support tanks. Their strength lies in maneuvering, using superior mobility to get around enemy lines and hit from the side or rear. In tight, CQC-focused maps, that playstyle becomes nearly unviable.

Minor Nations: Designed to Flank, Forced to Brawl

Let’s take Sweden (Rank VI - VII), Germany (Rank VI - VII), Japan (Rank VI+), France (Rank VI+) with limited armor and high mobility, or Italy in its entirely. These machines thrive in open fields, large flanking routes, or elevation-based engagements where mobility and map awareness are rewarded.

Instead, they’re increasingly being forced into alleyways and killboxes where even a well-played vehicle is reduced to cannon fodder. Without the armor to tank hits or the room to flank, these tanks are stuck in a perpetual disadvantage against nations whose vehicles are designed for head-on brawling, such as Russia, Germany, or the USA.

Map Diversity Is Shrinking

One of the biggest complaints from the community right now isn’t just about small maps—it’s about the lack of map diversity in general. Maps like Maginot Line, Fields of Poland, Normandy (large), Tunisia (Large), Red Desert, Pradesh or Fulda—which provided balanced flanking opportunities and a more tactical approach—are being seen less frequently, or have been removed from the rotation at certain BRs entirely.

This narrow focus on fast-paced, close-combat maps is a disservice to War Thunder’s own core mechanics, which once encouraged thoughtful movement, positioning, and varied playstyles.

Map Boundaries Are Suffocating Gameplay

Another major concern tied to the shrinking diversity in War Thunder’s maps is the trend of tightening map boundaries with every update. Even traditionally open maps like Fields of Poland, Maginot Line, or El Alamein—which once offered long flanking routes and freedom of movement—are now being sliced into smaller, boxed-in versions during rotation. In many cases, large sections of the map are cordoned off with invisible walls or red zones, turning what used to be strategic terrain into dead space.

This design decision has a direct and damaging impact on gameplay. The core strength of many vehicles—especially light tanks, wheeled vehicles, and the glass-cannon flankers of minor nations—lies in their ability to approach the enemy from unexpected angles. But with routes being cut off and movement options restricted, these vehicles are forced into predictable and linear engagements.

Instead of rewarding creativity, map awareness, and tactical play, the current system funnels all players into the same narrow lanes over and over. Every match begins to feel the same. Every approach becomes a risk with no reward. And every update that introduces more “restricted areas” chips away at what made War Thunder’s maps dynamic in the first place.

Map boundaries shouldn’t be a cage. They should exist to define the battlefield—not suffocate it. And right now, that balance is completely off.

The Consequences: Poor Gameplay and Player Frustration

  • Reduced Vehicle Variety: Players are discouraged from using light vehicles, wheeled vehicles, or SPAA in ground battles, because their performance in tight maps is poor.
  • Nation Disadvantage: Minor nations are not only underrepresented in player numbers but are also now being mechanically penalized by poor map fit.
  • Increased Frustration: Getting the same three maps repeatedly makes the game feel stale and punishing—especially when none of them support your vehicle’s strengths.

A Call for Change

It’s time for Gaijin to reconsider the direction of map design and rotation. War Thunder has always thrived on its complexity and diversity—both in vehicles and in terrain. Limiting maps to small, repetitive CQC-style engagements harms the game’s tactical depth and alienates players who favor skill-based flanking and map awareness over brute force.

Here’s what needs to happen:

  • Bring back large, open maps to the regular rotation.
  • Remove the “map feedback” system so that every map comes in rotation without player interaction.
  • Balance map selection by BR and vehicle type, remove tiny maps from the rotation of 9.3 and above and make maps like Maginot Line , Fields of Poland , Normandy (large) , Tunisia (Large) , Red Desert , Pradesh or Fulda more prevalent.
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6 Likes

I 100% agree with this.
It can also be applied to air battles.
After all these years, it is killing my enthusiasm or desire to play the game.

3 Likes

As if the maps being bad wasn’t annoying enough, they also don’t get rotated enough and the matchmaker just loves choosing the same maps over and over again.
I dunno if Gaijin is weighting the maps in a weird way or if there genuinely is something wrong with the matchmaker, but they really gotta do something about it.
Also, let us ban maps entirely, not just versions of the map.
And while you’re at it, turn ARB EC maps into an opt-in. I am tired of having to play those in sub-sonic jets, especially when everyone else is in a super-sonic jet.

1 Like

My personal opinion is I love map diversity.
Whether it’s brawling maps like Fields of Normandy and Mozdok [I’d say Berlin but that’s locked out for higher BRs], or flanking maps such as Red Desert or Sweden.
I don’t like just urban, or just open.

The following is not an endorsement or agreement with urban maps being prioritized among players; it is purely an explanation from my experience and study.

Why CQC is chosen among players: Flanking, balance, and basketball.

Flanking: Open maps, especially ones with verticality, tend to have 0 - 6 flanking routes.
Red Desert and Pradesh are outliers where they have verticality and more than 6 flanking routes, though Pradesh is technically a larger CQC map.

“What do you mean flanking on CQC maps?”
Road networks are flanking networks.

One notable example of this I was playing my Chinese artillery piece and got Iberian Castle.
I flanked over 4 tanks using over 20 routes in the small city area.

Urban maps when designed well offer more flanking options than large maps such as Fields of Normandy which has 1 - 2 flanking routes.
Fields of Normandy will always chronically be a heavy tank map, which is a good lead to the next part.

Balance.

Ever since Leopard 2A5, Strv 122, T-80U, and Abrams the community has preferred one type of map over all others: Urban. Not CQC as a whole, just urban.

The reason: The idler wheel.
The ultimate weak spot on all MBTs in War Thunder resulting in one shot frags for T-series tanks, and consistent one shot frags for everyone else.

People like forcing tanks to expose their weak spots when making movements, it can and has slowed down gameplay compared to long-range brawling [I’ll get back to this as a note later].

Brawling maps such as Mozdok, Finland, or Fields of Normandy prioritize heavy tanks as the vehicles to use due to their excessive armor and lack of flanking routes.

However, if you bring a heavy tank on Sweden, Ardennes, Iberian Castle, or Golden Quarry with current player counts you’re sooner to get flanked by someone and shot in the side due to lack of visibility around the map… flanking routes.
Well designed urban maps give a higher chance against heavy armor [unless you’re Tiger 1 where the chance is equal] than brawling maps.

That brings us to the final point: Basketball.

In basketball a phenomenon is taught players first starting out: All the skill comes from playing within the inner circle around the hoop.

How this translates in War Thunder: In tank combat long-range brawling AKA sniping, less skill and more luck is involved.
Luck that your shot doesn’t deviate and the enemy doesn’t move, and in sim luck that you remembered the parallax correctly.

In close quarters skill becomes the priority, using your mobility, map knowledge, and game knowledge better than the enemy. After all in an urban environment both of you have to expose your weakspots, armor becomes less of a priority as sound and team positioning start to matter more.
The dreaded 5-sided pincer against 1 - 3 tanks.

In conclusion: It is clear players prefer urban maps for some or all of the following reasons: Challenge, speed, flanking, balance.

Now, this doesn’t mean large scale flanking maps aren’t possible, after all I mentioned Red Desert.
Red Desert is however over 2x the size of Pradesh.

Now about that note of me calling sniping “long range brawling”.
Someone that played old Port Novo was talking with me one day, and I was mentioning how I enjoyed a bit of sniping. They responded “You mean long-range brawling?” I retorted “What does that mean?”
Their response was a very eye opening response.
“If flanking is getting around an enemy, shooting their side, sniping can never be flanking outside of that one singular flank on Maginot Line that’s no longer there. Sniping is almost always tanks shooting at the front aspect of each other, and from their own sides of the map. If brawling is when tanks face head-on, then sniping is brawling at longer ranges.” Paraphrasing a little since he said this in voice and neither of us wrote it down.


With that I must oppose your last 3 points.
Large maps as priority would be as unrealistic as any map type as priority, and be stale.
I love diversity of maps, I love Red Desert I love Iberian Castle.
Map feedback is an overall good for the game.
And removing maps based on size is something I oppose more and more as I get a better understanding of tanks.

I get your frustration. I don’t get to see Carpathians often, a medium sized brawling map.
For the most part I see urban flanking maps, or heavy tank maps like Fields of Normandy.

And it’s yet another map complaint thread that fails to realize that cqc isn’t inherently bad, and that it often doesn’t disadvantage light tanks.

  1. They need to add a functioning map rotation that give you seversk 50% of the time first.
  2. We need a better feedback system so players can submit and discuss actual feedback and changes in a non “muh small map bad sniping good” way.
  3. They already do that.

To do that they actually need to design good maps to begin with, which they rarely do.

Small maps aren’t bad, larger maps aren’t inherently good, it all comes down to the details.

CQC isnt inherently bad but makes certain vehicles unusable. The opposite is also true.

ATGM destroyers are borderline unusable on maps like Sweden or Advance to Rhine outside of some cheesy spot, single alley or dedicated “open area” that covers maybe like 2% of the map.

On the other hand, whos gonna play Maus on map like Maginot?

Should the maps be made to benefit all vehicle classes at once? No. But neither should maps be made to benefit single vehicle class.

I think its more of an issue with map rotation than it is with maps themselves.

You said it yourself

If i want to play M901 and i get Advance to Rhine, sucks but such is life. If I want to play M901 and I get CQC maps 90% of the time, thats actually faulty game design.

2 Likes