Armored Warfare launches today on Xbox One

For a rather long time, World of Tanks reigned supreme on Microsoft's Xbox and the reason was not its (rather debatable) awesomeness, but the lack of any serious competition. Fortunately, Xbox players who love massive online multiplayer vehicular combat gained an excellent World of Tanks alternative back in late June, when War Thunder — also featuring land-air combined battles — became available for the Xbox One. Now, the time has come for the World of Tanks wannabe with modern tanks, namely Armored Warfare, to join the crowd.

If you missed this title so far, it's enough to say that Armored Warfare arrived back in October 2015 as a closed beta title for Windows PCs and, just like its two competitors mentioned above, is a free-to-play game. However, while World of Tanks and War Thunder focus on the World War II and the start of the Cold War, the vehicles present in Armored Warfare cover the entire Cold War period and also include contemporary vehicles, as well as some prototypes that are still being tested as I write this or never made it beyond this stage.

Developed by Obsidian Entertainment — the American company that worked on popular titles like Fallout: New Vegas and Neverwinter Nights 2 — Armored Warfare uses Crytek's CryEngine and can be considered a good game from the technical point of view. However, in the years that passed since its closed beta days, many core concepts have been completely changed or removed, so there are not many long-time players still hanging around.

Speaking of the reasons that made a lot of early beta players leave, I should point out the fact that artillery vehicles were removed from PvP matches although they were definitely not overpowered as many inexperienced players were complaining. The good part is that, unlike World of Tanks, Armored Warfare comes with a set of rather enjoyable PvE missions and new ones are being added on a regular basis.

The set of in-game screenshots I recently captured and the Xbox One launch movie should give you an idea of what to expect from Armored Warfare. Since this is a free-to-play title, expect painful grinding from a certain point on, but if you are not one of those looking to get to the top tier vehicles in a matter of days, this game can be quite enjoyable. For now, the main problem — at least on Windows — is the lack of human players and the painful wait before finally entering a battle.

Do you think there is anything better than World of Tanks, War Thunder, and Armored Warfare for the fans of vehicular combat using consoles? Let us know in the comments.