Xbox Addict

E3 2013: World of Tanks coming to Xbox 360

Chicago’s Wargaming West is producing a version of the wildly successful free-to-play phenomenon World of Tanks for the Xbox 360. Like the PC version that came before, World of Tanks Xbox 360 Edition puts players in command of WWII-period armored vehicles, from nimble scout tanks to large-caliber indirect-fire artillery. It borrows heavily from MMO games and first person shooters to create gripping tactical battles. The game has thrived over the past three years due in part to its rich clan structure, where teams duke it out across multiple maps on multiple fronts.

American and German tanks will take the field in an open beta scheduled to begin soon after E3. That beta will be carefully-scaled for release on the Xbox Live Marketplace. When the game goes live world-wide later in 2013, British tanks will also be available. Wargaming West has already announced an expansion, dubbed "The Russian Invasion," that will unlock the Red Army as a playable faction.

Wargaming West is inviting attendees at E3 to the closed beta, which has been ongoing since early this year. When we visited their studio in mid-May we were told that the game was already running on retail Xboxs in the wild. The demonstration we played was a solid experience, a faithful port with analog controls and a user interface specifically designed for larger, lower resolution screens.

The Xbox 360 game will not be connected to the PC title. Wargaming West sees the console as a seperate user base, and has not made efforts toward cross-platform play with their more than 60 million other registered users. Instead they’re developing for the console in order to leverage the 8-year-old device’s large install base and add value to the tens of millions of units already in consumer homes.