Summary
- Tanks play a crucial role in these real-time strategy games by offering heavy firepower.
- Games like Warzone 2100, Warno, and Dawn of War 2 include tank-centric gameplay, emphasizing their importance in battles.
- Tank management is key to victory in games like Call to Arms and Red Alert 3, where tanks are the crux of winning armies.
Like tanks themselves, games that focus on these steel behemoths come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Whether they are incorporated into a game for military realism, unit variety, or sheer explosive output, tanks are a feature in a broad genre of games, but none more so than the real-time strategy genre.
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When playing real-time strategy games, it can be easy to get overwhelmed with the sheer volume of possibilities available to the player. What units should you use? How do you counter an enemy's army? Tanks, with their variety of builds and heavy firepower, can often be a godsend in RTS games if utilized properly—and these games incorporate tanks fantastically into their mechanics.
5 Warzone 2100
An Open Source RTS Classic
- Released: April 10, 1999
- Developer: Pumpkin Studios, Underdone Gaming, Warzone 2100 Project
- Platforms: PC
Warzone 2100 is a free, open-source classic that's been circulating among RTS fans for years now. It is a futuristic title with an incredibly expansive technology tree that allows tech to continually evolve with the player and with the player's enemies. There is a robust campaign that allows for an incredible amount of customization between the two major factions, while still sticking to the general design philosophy of the synthetic army units being numerous and cheap, while the human armies are more expensive but of higher quality.
Warzone 2100 is a tank-centric RTS. Most of the combat and clashes between factions occur via the most straightforward medium known to man - massive steel cannons on treads. Upgrading tanks and keeping them ahead of the curve technologically is vital to staying ahead in this game.
4 Warno
A Grim WW3 RTS
WARNO
- Released
- May 23, 2024
- Platform(s)
- PC
- Developer
- Eugen Systems
- Genre(s)
- Real-Time Strategy, War, Action, Simulation, Indie Games
- OpenCritic Rating
- Strong
Warno seeks to answer a simple question through its gameplay: What if the Cold War went hot? Set in the mid-1980s, Warno is an expansive and highly technical real-time strategy game that sees players manage either NATO or Warsaw Pact-aligned forces in a bid for global control in an all-out war. The sense of scale this game has is magnified by its realism and the attention to detail players will need to bring to every battle.
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Tanks are an integral part of both factions' assault doctrine, setting the tone for how they manage to maneuver around enemies and flank them. Every aspect of Warno is symbiotic; however, tanks will only be as effective as the air support, or the effectiveness of on-the-ground troops.
3 Warhammer 40,000: Dawn Of War 2
Colossal Grimdark Artillery Awaits
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 2
- Released
- February 19, 2009
- Developer(s)
- Relic Entertainment
- Platform(s)
- PC
Rather than focusing on huge armies or defending an intricately designed base like its predecessor did, Dawn of War 2 instead focuses on a close-knit strikeforce of attackers or defenders trying to push their faction's ambition in just one spot within the fabric of this grimdark universe. What having a smaller group of attackers in this RTS means is that tanks are big-ticket items, they can easily become game-changing vehicles.
The tanks in this game are uniquely sculpted around the factions that include them, meaning that if your faction features tanks, it will be in an utterly unique capacity. The tanks in this game, like all the vehicles, do tend to be slow, so make sure any larger vehicle units are well-defended by more mobile units.
2 Call To Arms - Gates Of Hell: Ostfront
Visceral WW2 RTS Combat
- Released: June 11, 2021
- Developer: Barbedwire Studios, Digitalmindsoft
- Platforms: PC
Call to Arms - Gates of Hell: Ostfront has incredibly satisfying, visceral combat played out in stark, gruesome battles during the great Patriotic War between the USSR and Germany - set against the waning days of WW2. Battles take place on barren, frozen battlefields, and the stellar sound design makes every soldier, gun, and tank sound off with the right level of tremor and force. It's a very sensory experience, and beyond that, a very tactical one as well.
Tanks are used to fantastic effect in this game and will be the crux of any winning army in any of the game's maps. While, as with other titles on this list, they must be implemented properly, a smartly placed and utilized tank can be the difference between victory and failure in this game.
1 Command And Conquer: Red Alert 3
Soviet Time Traveling Antics
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3
The desperate leadership of a doomed Soviet Union travels back in time to change history and restore the glory of Mother Russia. The time travel mission goes awry, creating an alternate timeline where technology has followed an entirely different evolution, a new superpower has been thrust on to the world stage, and World War III is raging. The Empire of the Rising Sun has risen in the East, making World War III a three-way struggle between the Soviets, the Allies, and the Empire with armies fielding wacky and wonderful weapons and technologies like Tesla coils, heavily armed War Blimps, teleportation, armored bears, intelligent dolphins, floating island fortresses, and transforming tanks.
Star-Studded Storytelling: Command & Conquer's trademark live-action videos return in HD, with over 60 minutes of footage featuring the largest cast in the history of the Command & Conquer franchise.
Command the Seas, Conquer the World: Experience Gameplay as for the first time in the series, waging war on the water will be every bit as important as dominating by land and air. Gain strategic advantages by controlling resources in the seas and mounting three-pronged attacks from all directions.
Ready your Man Cannons!: Armored War Bears, and Anime-inspired psychic school girls join your favorite Red Alert units like Sonic Dolphins, Tesla Troopers, Attack Dogs, and the ever popular Tanya.
A New Threat From the East: The deadly Empire of the Rising Sun is a technological terror, with designs influenced by a mixture of anime, science-fiction, martial arts and robot culture. The Empire's futuristic units can transform into alternate forms, and they specialize in naval warfare.
Certainly not the most serious title on this list, Red Alert 3 is a great, beginner-friendly RTS that involves many destructive, outright ridiculous units to utilize as you wander through a high-stakes sci-fi plot, about time traveling to save the USSR. Yes, high-stakes, but certainly not what you'd call grounded. Tanks are the bread and butter of this game's land combat, with units capable of firing more than just artillery at the enemy, but also the occasional high-powered energy lance of plasma bombs that can unload serious damage onto the enemy.
This is a game where unit management is important, but raw unit output is even more so. Developing a personalized assault doctrine to take objectives by both land and sea - while defending them is essential, and within this gameplay philosophy, tanks are essential to maintaining the upper hand over the opponent.
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