The market for arcade, adrenaline-fueled vehicular combat games is pretty slim these days.
While we occasionally get an indie title come through or an old Twisted Metal game gets released onto PS Plus Premium, there isn’t much choice out there.
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WarGaming is known for creating realistic vehicular combat games, but at Gamescom, it announced Heat, a spinoff of World of Tanks.
Heat abandons the cumbersome controls and plodding combat of the original and creates a “tank shooter” – fast-paced, adrenaline-fueled movement with quick kills and fast matches. It was one of the biggest surprises of the show and sure to scratch the itch of Twisted Metal, Destruction AllStars, and Mario Kart Battle Mode fans.
The setup for Heat is that it is effectively a tank hero shooter, and WarGaming wanted to “bring the tank experience into the modern day”.
You play as one of several different agents who have their own tank options, abilities, and specialisations. With your Agent, you then compete in small-scale 10v10 objective game modes that last no more than 10 or so minutes.
These modes take place on various maps, but objectives move around a map as each match plays out to keep them feeling like active battles and to provide new buildings and cover as structures get flattened.
Initially, when we turned up to play Heat, our overriding thought was, “How is this going to work?” But upon picking up a controller, it clicked almost instantly.
WarGaming has effectively taken the easy-to-pick-up tank controls of Battlefield 6 and meshed them with the pace of Call of Duty games from a decade ago, like Modern Warfare 3 and Black Ops 2.
The pace of the tank gameplay has been ratcheted up to 11. Tanks still control like tanks, but turning circles, speed, and reloads have all been sped up. Opponents (and you) die in just a couple of shots. Abilities are quick to pull off and have a dramatic effect on tank fights.
Heat is less about strategy and tactical play and more about momentum and overwhelming your opponent, either with support fire from your team or abilities.
That’s why it feels closer to the vehicular destruction games Sony and others used to make. It’s a game where you can hop in for 30 minutes, play a few matches, and hop out without spending half the time waiting around for something to happen.
It’d be easy to write this off as a small side project that has received minimal effort, but a lot of thought has been put into the game and what players would want from this kind of experience, from what we saw.
Characters feel distinct, and their abilities are pretty inspired, especially considering they are being used by tanks.
For example, one character we played was able to quickly shoot several smoke grenades up in front of them, plastering the battlefield in thick white smog, and allowing them to make a quick dash out of the battle.
Another character had a boost that could be used to ram tanks through buildings and into walls in seconds, something you can’t do in World of Tanks or Battlefield easily.
There is a full firing range with several different tanks to practice using abilities on, something even Destiny 2 was missing until recently.
On top of that, the entire tank customisation and parts system from World of Tanks has been carried over, with the ability to change tank cannons, tracks, your outer shell, etc.
These parts have stat boosts and perks, so there’s a lot of depth here if you want, but it’s also clear you could ignore the minutiae of this system if you just want to blast some people.
Heat really grabbed us during our time at Gamescom, and it’s an engrossing and entertaining mix of World of Tanks’ rock-solid vehicular combat and the intensity of modern shooters.
While we’re not sure if it will have the ability to hold our interest and become our new live service, it is an enjoyable time, and we can see ourselves dipping in for a few matches here and there.
Existing World of Tanks players may also enjoy breaking up those longer matches with something more instantly gratifying.
What are your thoughts on Heat? Has this fast-paced twist on World of Tanks left you hot under the collar? Warm up your thoughts in the comments section below.
