visible and a
Colorado-class battleship under the player's control, one of many ships the player can acquire through gameplay
World of Warships is a slow-paced tactical
shooter game with three basic types of armament:
naval artillery,
torpedoes and
attack aircraft. The gameplay is team-based, and
divisions can be established to allow a group of up to three players to join and fight battles together. The player's team can fight against other players (
PvP) or against the
AI (
PvE) in several battle types.
Co-op battles feature a team of players facing off against a team of AI-controlled
bots, usually 9v9. Credit and experience rewards earned in co-operative play are notably lower than those earned in Random Battles (PvP), which are the most popular battle type in World of Warships. In Random Battles, captains are dropped into a game with other players according to the matchmaking system, with a majority of these being 12v12 battles. Scenarios pit a team of players against increasingly difficult waves of AI-controlled opponents in operations with unique objectives. In scenarios, players are allowed to queue solo, but are encouraged to gather their friends into a division; assembling a full division of 7 players will greatly increase the chances of success. campaigns and collections for the sake of creating extra goals, rewards and a meaningful progression for players during their time with the game. These systems also give an opportunity of creating stories inside or outside the military or historical genres. Some special Halloween, April Fools, and other holiday battle modes appear in the game. The secondary goal of the "holiday modes" is to test new game mechanics. Temporary
anime tie-in events have occurred, featuring ships and characters (as ship commanders) from
High School Fleet,
Azur Lane,
Arpeggio of Blue Steel, and
Blue Archive. Other tie-in IPs include
Warhammer 40K,
Transformers,
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,
Star Trek, and more. Other events have used science-fiction-themed ships and environments, but not tied to a specific franchise. Battles take place on a limited number of specific maps, each depicting a certain location with different geographical layouts, usually featuring numerous islands of varying size that influence play. Most maps have a static or dynamic weather system to make battles more diverse. Moreover, some maps are unique for a certain game mode, e.g. PvE scenario battles based on historical events such as the
Dunkirk evacuation. Scenarios is a PvE game mode where players cooperate and complete tasks. They include a number of operations, each with separate stories, objectives, secondary objectives and rewards. Tasks include not only destroying enemy vessels but also bombarding shore installations, escorting convoys, or preventing enemy vessels from entering or escaping certain areas. To finish the scenario, players need to team up and complete the primary objective. On completion of the secondary objectives, they receive an additional star. In addition to Ranked Battles, Clan battles were introduced as another competitive mode that is played in the season format. Players can only participate in Clan Battles as a team, as opposed to Ranked battles where individual players compete against each other. A clan is a group of "teamed" players who either apply or are invited. Also, a bonus resource, oil, can be awarded and contributed to the clan. The commanders (owners) of the group can use this to build and upgrade fleet buildings, which give bonuses to every player in the clan.
Ship types The warships presented in the game cover periods from the early 20th century, from the dawn of
dreadnought battleships to the 1950s (prior to the proliferation of
guided missiles), including many ships that were planned but never put into production in real life. The game features navies of
major maritime powers including the
United States Navy, the
Imperial Japanese Navy, the United Kingdom's
Royal Navy, the French
Marine Nationale, the
Imperial German Navy (later
Kriegsmarine), the Italian
Regia Marina and the
Imperial Russian Navy (later the
Red Fleet).
Dutch,
Commonwealth (
Canadian,
Australian,
New Zealand and
Indian),
Spanish, and other smaller European navies (including
Swedish,
Polish,
Greek and
Turkish) are also represented, along with a Pan-Asian tree featuring ships from various East Asian (
Chinese,
Taiwanese and
South Korean) and Southeast Asian (
Thai,
Indonesian and
Malaysian) navies, and a Pan-American nation featuring ships from the navies of the Latin American countries (such as
Brazil,
Argentina,
Peru and
Mexico). The game originally had four different types of ships that each offer their own style of play:
battleships,
cruisers,
destroyers, and
aircraft carriers.
Submarines were also permanently added to the game with the release of Update 11.9. Battleships are heavily armoured with the most
hit points and their
main guns can deal significant
shell damage with each
volley, but they are slow, difficult to maneuver and take a long time to reload; destroyers are fast and agile with rapid guns, but are weaker in both gun damage and hit points, and have to rely more on the much slower torpedoes against larger ships; cruisers have aptitudes halfway between the formers, being faster than battleships and stronger than destroyers. Aircraft carriers have large hit points but are slow and mediocrely armoured, but can launch
airstrikes beyond other ship's gun ranges using
carrier-based aircraft. Submarines are the weakest vessels armour-wise and with only moderate speeds, but can use
homing torpedoes, as well as much more potent unguided
torpedoes and remain submerged (and largely undetectable to large ships) for a limited amount of time, although they are vulnerable to ship- or aircraft-deployed
depth charges. Battleships and some
heavy cruisers can launch
spotter aircraft that increase their observation range as well as drop depth charges on submarines within a designated zone. All
surface combatants (i.e. excluding submarines) have automated
anti-aircraft batteries that can shoot down approaching enemy aircraft, and battleships have rapid-firing
secondary guns that autonomously attack any nearby enemy ships. For practical purposes, each ship is placed in a
tier system to facilitate balanced matchmaking. There are ten tiers for each ship: Tier I is the lowest and Tier X is the highest; however, some tech trees have additional "superships" -denoted by a star- as one last progression after Tier X. With a few exceptions, each nation has a
tech tree; smaller navies with one branch and larger navies with branches for each type and a ship of each type at most tiers. In some cases branches split, such as into heavy and light cruisers. The lowest tier for each tech tree ship type also varies: cruisers at Tier I, destroyers at Tier II, battleships at Tier III (the sole exception being Tier II Japanese battleship
Mikasa), aircraft carriers at Tier IV and submarines at tier VI. There are also premium ships that are outside the tech tree; these are available for cash and/or in-game resources. Tier I is essentially a tutorial mode; only one ship of each navy is available in the game at that tier. These ships are classed as cruisers in the game, but historically some were classed as
gunboats,
avisos, or
frigates, and all are from the
WWII era. They feature a small number of 102mm to 152mm guns and relatively slow speed. Tier I is unique in that no other tiers are included in their matchmaking, with no other offensive capabilities outside of their main batteries. Tiers II through X include ships of increasing combat capability, generally following the chronological development of each ship type in each navy, beginning circa 1905–1910 and ending in the 1950s. Ships whose construction were never completed or even begun, also called "paper ships", are used to fill gaps in the tech tree and explore hypothetical developments. Most Tier X ships, most Russian and French ships, and all of the German and Soviet aircraft carriers (
Graf Zeppelin reached a late stage of construction but never entered service) are in this category. Players can progress through the game via the research and purchase of ships from each tier. Each specific ship has a number of modules that can be accessed through experience. This experience is used to unlock modules, which can then be purchased with credits and mounted. Once a ship's modules are completely researched (credit purchase is not required), the player can acquire the next ship in the tree by spending experience and credits. The previous ship, if fully upgraded, gains "Elite" status, meaning all of its subsequently earned experience can be converted to free experience by spending doubloons (which are primarily acquired via cash purchases). On any ship, warship elements such as commanders with skill trees and unique perks can be customized, as well as modification kits and consumables such as
signals and
ship camouflage. == Soundtrack and audio design ==