Tanki Online

Genre: Action

Players: 8-64 Competitive / Team Competitive (Online)

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Review:

WARNING: THIS GAME HEAVILY PUSHES MICROTRANSACTIONS AND BATTLE PASSES

Tanki Online, released on PC in 2017 and ported to Nintendo Switch in 2025, is a free-to-play multiplayer-focused Action game where players compete in their own custom tank, in arenas with various standard game types (deathmatch, team deathmatch, domination, etc.). As they progress, they’ll gain access to a wider variety of custom parts, as well as the ability to upgrade parts.

The presentation in Tanki Online isn’t impressive, but it looks decent enough, with a fair amount of detail and fairly stable performance. The game has a colorful and very slightly-cartoony look, which helps to distinguish it from the somewhat similar World of Tanks Blitz. This is joined by decent tank sounds and some military-sounding music that’s so generic and forgettable that as I write this I’m still not sure there even was music.

The gameplay here is fairly simple, but works well enough, with different turret parts offering different types of gunfire, and players gradually also gaining access to additional secondary weapons and consumable weapons like grenades.

However, the problems here are pretty bad. While the core gameplay here is decent enough, the game’s maps are just too small to have any sort of coherent strategy. You can try ducking around corners to try to play a little hide-and-seek, but mostly you’ll just be trading fire with enemies until the weaker one or the outnumbered one(s) takes too much damage and loses.

However, this leads to an even bigger problem – the monetization. Naturally, this game uses premium currency that can be bought with real-world cash, which makes it easier to power-up your tank’s parts, the only way in this game to gain any sort of significant advantage over your competition. In other words, this is straight-up pay-to-win. Not that you’ll have much motivation to pay anything though, since the online lobbies are all empty and games are filled with bots.

What’s worse, there’s already a better alternative on Nintendo Switch, and I’ve already named it: World of Tanks Blitz aims to be far more realistic, and it has quite a few of its own problems, but it is far more playable than this game, and offers far more enjoyment in the long-term.

When even that flawed game is clearly superior to Tanki Online, it’s a clear sign that this is a game that I cannot recommend to players. The small maps, the simple gameplay, and especially the nasty monetization with pay-to-win elements all make this a game that stamps out any fun it may contain.

tl;dr – Tanki Online is a free-to-play Action game that has players competing in arenas using custom tanks. The core gameplay here is simple but not bad, but it’s ruined by maps that are far too small, lobbies filled with bots, and gross monetization with pay-to-win elements. You’re better off playing the similar World of Tanks Blitz instead of this.

Grade: D

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