Checking In With 'World of Warships' One Year Later

World of Warships, Wargaming's free-to-play, historical, online PC combat game, officially launched one year ago. Under the Radar traveled to St. Petersburg to report on the game's development, so we decided to check in to see how things are going.

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Wargaming is best known for its worldwide hit game World of Tanks and they've brought the same attention to historical detail to Warships and its early-to-mid 20th century ships. Jay Cohen, General Manager of Wargaming America says, “Historical accuracy is one of our most important pillars here at Wargaming, and we have a dedicated team of militaria specialists and artists who work together to diligently model each ship from their original blueprints and photographs to ensure that that stays true. As World of Warships continues to grow, so too does our ability to educate our players about military history and the many vessels that make up our naval heritage around the world.”

Check out the numbers:

Even with those incredible numbers, World of Warships has a lot of room to grow here in North America:

Less than 10% of unique users so far come from North America and almost two thirds of players come from China and Russia. There have been 1.8 billion battles in the first year.

World of Warships, like all Wargaming titles is free to play and actually free to win. They are running a business: additional ships and in-game items are available to buy, but the majority of game content is truly free.

The game now includes over a hundred iconic warships from the American, Japanese, German, British and Soviet early-to-mid-20th century navies in four ship classes: battleships, cruisers, destroyers and aircraft carriers. Players compete in intense versus and co-op online battles in 12 vs 12 and 7 vs 7 game modes.

Warships is the first sequel to World of Tanks to truly resonate with players. Chris Stott, Community Manager for World of Warships, notes both the growth in the number of players and the fast evolution of the game's options: "World of Warships has grown tremendously over the course of a year. We've made a ton of changes to our game, multiple modes, new tech trees, and weather effects. The game is an ever-evolving product and it's really exciting to imagine where it'll be in another year, never mind three or four.”

If all this piques your curiosity and you want to check out World of Warships for yourself, click here and use invite code NEWCAPT2016 to receive a free Aurora premium ship, the powerful Tier III Soviet cruiser, and exclusive in-game goods worth $20.