World War III

The History: 

World War 3 is a game with a very rocky history, released back in 2018 it was met with heavily negative reviews from critics and players alike. Server issues, terrible audio, huge performance issues to the point it was unplayable, simply it was just not worth playing and there were better games out there. World War 3 was then pulled from the market, but fast forward 3 years later to 2021 and it was back in closed beta, and despite all that development time it was still underwhelming but the critics had hope as it had the core structure of a solid first person shooter.

Fast forward again to march 2022 and World War 3 has been receiving tons of hype from youtubers in the tactical FPS scene. Initially, I thought it was from this game going free to play, along with the huge disappointment of Battlefield 2042 and people just wanting a new battlefield-like game to play, but after some playtime I think I know the reasons why people are liking this game so much, so let’s get into it.

Gameplay

Gameplay is the core element of any title and World War 3 very much delivers on what it sets out to do. Now with people saying that its Battlefield this battlefield that, I think World War 3 mechanically is more like rainbow six siege with its movement mechanics and leaning, but also more like hardcore shooters with the super fast time to kill. This is in no way bad, the guns feel fantastic and add in the great movement it turns out to be a great combination. However, if you are tempted to sprint everywhere you need to hold back because of that time to kill, bit by bit I’ve learnt to scan rooms in a more tactical manner instead of just running in because that split second makes a difference. But yeah, its just fun being able to run around and shoot enemies with this more hardcore gameplay but in a much less hardcore setting given its not intense bomb defusal, or battle royale, or raiding like in tarkov, its just conquest but the guns hit hard and kill fast. Simply, the raw gameplay is quite good and that sets the scene.

Issues

Before moving on further, I just wanna say that I have a unique perspective in that I haven’t started playing World War 3 until this month, so I don’t really have the before and after regarding what were this game’s biggest issues are, that being the huge amounts of lag, game balance and terrible audio. These issues have thankfully all been resolved, but I don’t want to focus on them for this video because the developers fixing something that shouldn’t have been broken in the first place is not inherently a reason to play this game. It might be a reason for old players to come back, but for me and many new players we want to see exactly why this game is worth sinking our time into, so with that said let’s get back into it.

Maps and Modes

So big tick with the gameplay, but let’s talk about the maps and modes. World War 3’s modes feature up to 40 players, with tactical ops being your classic conquest like mode with 20 players per team and team deathmatch being 10 v 10. The most obvious thing is the rather low team sizes, but this works okay as it’s much easier to get full matches which is great for a game with a healthy, but not huge player base. The obvious downside though is a lack of scale, you’re not going to get those all out wars with heaps and heaps of players and this is very obvious in the tactical ops mode, the big maps look nice but feel empty given there are only max 40 people on the battlefield. However in team deathmatch, with the smaller, cut down maps, it feels much more normal. The other obvious downside is the lack of modes, as there are only those 2 and this lack of content will be a recurring point throughout this video. Yes this is quote unquote an early access game, but it’s been out for a quite a while and more should be expected by this point.

Maps

Map wise though I really like what world war 3 is doing, obviously they’re made for both vehicles and infantry but there are clear infantry parts which I love because I’m not much of a tank guy. So I can stay close quarters and play my way which is sweet, in comparison 2042 basically pigeon holes you into always using vehicles to traverse the massive maps, here the maps are decently sized and feel reasonable, the only thing being that a full lobby is really needed to fill them out. The maps themselves are detailed and look really nice, it very much feels like an actual city in the middle of a war, rather than a cardboard cutout.

So looping back, while the raw gameplay is not traditional battlefield, this combined with the very battlefield-like maps means it gives off that vibe and I can definitely see why people are gravitating over to it, it feels like a breath of fresh air in that sense.

Graphics

The graphics in World War 3 are pretty damn good, everything has a high level of detail that we’re accustomed to see in modern fps games. Naturally it isn’t as good as warzone and the such, but it’s close enough that the differences don’t really matter. To be fair, I personally don’t even care about graphics that much, I care about performance and gameplay, and World War 3 delivers on both. As soon as I started playing I instically turned most things down to medium or high and got a very stable 150 fps which is what I capped the game at, however cranking it to ultra on everything I was still getting 100 FPS while recording which is sick. In general, World War 3 is a very optimized game, I don’t even get these numbers from other, not as nice looking fps titles. This is easy to see in regards to the minimum system specifications, all that is required is a 2nd gen i5 processor, 8 gigs of ram and a geforce gtx 770. Yes the memory requirement is a tad high but overall these requirements are quite a bit lower than other tactical shooters out there

Server Support

One downfall, for Australian players at least, is the lack of an oceanic server. I don’t even know if there is an Asian server because every time I hop in-game I get red or yellow bars, meaning I’m connecting to American or European servers. Now gameplay wise it’s actually not too bad, there are no super obvious lag effects which is nice and the game is still quite playable. It’s only noticeable here and there when players skip ahead a little or maybe a bullet feels like it just didn’t register. Naturally more servers would be fantastic, but I do like the quick matchmaking and if that means connecting to NA servers then that’s fine with me given the gameplay repercussions are low.

Customisation

A core element to World War 3, and an element that really sets itself apart from other fps games is the weapon customisation. Many games restrict the player’s creativity in the customisation department, limiting weapon attachments to what is quote unquote realistic. In World War 3 though you can just put whatever you want, sniper scopes, double scopes, grips, different magazines, its pretty cool and opens up a lot of doors to really fine tune your weapon.

Backing up to the class level though, when you unlock each class it comes with a pretty much fully kitted out weapon, for example the assault class has an assault rifle with a scope, foregrip, muzzle break and so on, the anti tank class has a suppressed smg with a laser sight. It’s quite cool having a solid loadout and means you’re not at an immediate disadvantage when trying out a new class. There’s also a secondary weapon, a primary gadget like a medpack, a secondary grade like a grenade, along with armor plating. The plating is cool since if you want to go with stuff that has more protection, that incurs a big weight penalty. Another result of this weight system is you can run two traditionally primary weapons like a smg and a lmg, but naturally you’ll have to run the lowest level armor to compensate since there is a limit to the weight. This freedom is really great, and working around a weight system rather than a point system for each class works well.

No tutorial

Now one thing that would be really nice is a super quick tutorial just to show off the game’s features. When you hop in game there is gameplay tips on the left hand side on how to actually play, but an actual tutorial would be cool for people new to the FPS genre or just to get accustomed to the leaning, sliding, game mechanics and so on

Free to Play

Next up let’s talk about the free to play relaunch, because this is a stroke of genius. Everyone knows that 2042 has been an incredible failure and people want a new battlefield like title, then there was the rumors EA was gonna release the portal mode as free to play that seemingly isn’t going to happen, so definitely it’s just a big mess. So World War 3 off the back of a huge development push that has significantly improved the game announces its going free to play, so legit two birds in one stone, a game people want and it’s becoming free. It just makes logical sense for battlefield fans that want a new game to transition over this new title from 2042, so great marketing overall from the world war 3 team. But its not only good marketing as the game itself is really really solid, the gameplay loop is sick, the maps are detailed and fun, the modes are straightforward but functional, the customisation has tons of depth, World War 3 has a lot going for it.

Its kinda crazy now that in 2022 the script is being flipped, indie developers are producing better titles than triple A studios and hey I’m here for it. 

Conclusion

While the flaws in this game are visible, that being a lack of content, somewhat empty maps, overpowered vehicles and a rather large grind to unlock weapons, over time these should be ironed out, especially in regards to the content. Now regarding the actual free to play launch, currently World War 3 is still in closed beta so you’ll have to pay to get in right now, but the devs have said it will become a free to play open beta title soon. This was originally planned for March 2022 however the developers made the difficult decision to push the open beta back.In regards to when it will actually drop, no updated dates have been released, subscribe to keep up to date.

So if you want a game with extremely fun, but more hardcore gameplay wrapped in an easy to pickup but hard to put down package, then I definitely recommend checking World War 3 out.