What are the best tank games on PC? There’s an undeniable thrill in charging into battle aboard a metal behemoth, capable of leveling entire structures with a single blast. Yet, finding the perfect tank game that balances power with the visceral vulnerability of these armored giants isn’t always straightforward. The slow reload times, the deliberate movement, and the sheer fact that you’re a colossal target can be just as agonizing as it is exhilarating.
Much like other top-tier war games, the best tank titles excel at making players feel both overwhelmingly powerful and surprisingly exposed. Whether you crave hyper-realistic simulations demanding meticulous control or prefer arcade-style, explosive shoot-’em-ups (perhaps even a charming anime RPG or two), a tank game exists for every kind of enthusiast.
Here are some of the best tank games available:
- World of Tanks
- War Thunder
- Enlisted
- Call of War: World War II
- Metal Slug
- Valkyria Chronicles 4
- Panzer Corps 2
- Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon
- Armored Warfare
- Battlefield 6
- Panzer Elite Action: Gold Edition
- Arma 3
- Steel Division 2
- Red Orchestra 2
- Company of Heroes 3
- Panzer Corps
- Battlezone
World of Tanks
For those seeking an accessible, yet deeply engaging tank experience, World of Tanks is your ideal choice. This free-to-play juggernaut delivers fast-paced, action-packed gameplay that prioritizes fun over hyper-realism. It’s perfect for newcomers eager to dive into tank combat, offering enough depth and a robust progression system to keep players hooked through numerous tiers of unlockable vehicles.
World of Tanks truly shines with its massive collection of over 800 armored vehicles, from agile scouts to formidable battlefield leviathans. The game features tanks from diverse nations including France, Great Britain, Japan, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Soviet Russia, the United States, and China, ensuring incredible variety in your battles. Plus, you can even take the fight on the go with the streamlined mobile version, World of Tanks: Blitz.
War Thunder
A colossal presence among free tank games and online titles, War Thunder is tailored for hardcore tacticians, statistical geniuses, and those with an obsessive eye for detail. Unlike its rival, World of Tanks, War Thunder makes no claims of being easily accessible. It boasts an astonishing number of tanks and intricate research trees, meaning you can easily invest hours into developing the wrong vehicle. Furthermore, War Thunder features a complex and sophisticated armor penetration mechanic, demanding careful consideration before every shot.
While War Thunder’s arcade mode provides a decent introduction to its core mechanics, you haven’t truly earned your veteran stripes until you’ve triumphed in a simulator battle. This intense game mode strips back your view, removes aim assists, and dramatically extends the time required for any action, transforming every encounter into a nail-biting tactical nightmare.
If you’re just starting, be sure to explore our War Thunder Ground Battles tips and our guide to the best War Thunder tier 1 tanks. War Thunder also extends its combat to planes and ships, making it one of the premier plane games as well.
Enlisted
Assume the role of a seasoned tank operator and steer your heavily armored vehicle across historically accurate WWII battlefields in Enlisted. This free-to-play MMO from Gaijin Entertainment meticulously recreates pivotal campaigns with stunning atmospheric detail, including—you guessed it—a vast arsenal of tanks ready for you to deploy and command throughout each conflict.
The game’s commitment to historical accuracy means that every tank or armored vehicle available per campaign directly corresponds to those that participated in the actual wars. This ensures no anachronistic K2 Black Panthers disrupt your combat immersion. Moreover, with each member of your AI squad specializing in a unique tactic, you decide whether to command from the relative safety of your steel shell or switch to infantry or aircraft for a fresh perspective on the battle.
Call of War: World War II
Sometimes you crave the direct action of piloting a tank and obliterating foes. Other times, you prefer a strategic overview of the entire war, dispatching tanks wherever they are most needed. That’s precisely the experience you’ll get in Call of War: World War II, a free-to-play MMO grand strategy game.
This game allows you to assume the role of a major combatant in the Second World War, where you and a host of other players can collectively alter the course of history. As you might imagine, a game of Call of War: World War II isn’t completed in a single sitting. Instead, you’ll return repeatedly over a significant period of real-world time, deciding where to invest time and resources—whether it’s research to boost your economy or reinforcing your military to become an unstoppable conqueror. It’s a game into which you’ll easily sink countless hours.
Metal Slug
Metal Slug stands apart from other tank games on this list. It’s a 2D arcade run-and-gun thrill ride, bursting with explosives, superb animation, and an unforgettable soundtrack. While we highly recommend the first installment, the entire Metal Slug series offers a delightful dive into war game chaos, perfect for both solo and multiplayer sessions.
This side-scrolling shooter casts you as Rambo-esque heroes who tear through enemy armies single-handedly. Bullets, bombs, and explosions erupt from every direction, with you often being the primary cause. During certain levels, you can hijack one of the iconic Metal Slug tanks, and they are an absolute blast to control! It may not be a lengthy game, but this is retro fun at its most charming and exhilarating—we absolutely adore it.
Valkyria Chronicles 4
Tanks often evoke a feeling of immense power—crashing through battlefields, encased in metal, and blowing structures to smithereens. However, not every game allows you to get away with reckless charges. Valkyria Chronicles 4 expertly combines power with strategy, leaving you feeling exposed if you charge in without careful planning, creating an alluring blend of might and vulnerability.
Sega’s tactical RPG places you in the trench coat of an army officer, tasked with guiding their unit through the harsh realities of war. As you engage foes in turn-based battles, one of the crucial units at your disposal is a tank. Play smart, execute cunning flanking maneuvers, and you’ll blast your enemies to bits. Make a single misstep, however, and your tank could be quickly immobilized by a well-placed Lancer shot.
The setting of Valkyria Chronicles 4 draws inspiration from Europe’s pre-WWI political climate. Visually, however, it leans closer to an anime game, giving it a distinctive charm compared to other tank-focused titles.
Panzer Corps 2
Beyond its substantial visual upgrade, this WWII strategy game sequel significantly expands the tank battle experience. It boasts over 1,000 unique units (a leap from Panzer Corps’ 800) and an expansive campaign featuring 60 diverse scenarios.
The multiplayer options are equally abundant, offering various ways to engage in online battles—either against or in cooperation with your friends. With extensive modding support and a powerful scenario editor, you have the tools to orchestrate the tank-on-tank showdowns of your wildest dreams.
Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon
Strictly speaking, Armored Core 6 is a mech game, but it’s a title that tank enthusiasts will absolutely love due to its incredible depth of customization. Essentially, you can transform your mech into a powerful tank, trundling around and blowing up foes just as you would in any other game on this list. When you think about it, what is a mech if not a futuristic evolution of a tank?
Where Fires of Rubicon truly excels is in its replayability. You can tackle every challenge in countless ways, thanks to the vast array of customization options available for your mech. Do you prefer a guns-blazing approach, or a slow and strategic advance? With new weapons and augmentations continuously unlocking, you can essentially rebuild your mech with each new level. The Armored Core 6 story also offers multiple endings, providing ample incentive to play through the game several times, experimenting with different tactics each run.
Read our full Armored Core 6 review for more details.
Armored Warfare
While the labels ‘MMO’, ‘free-to-play’, and ‘tank’ apply equally to Armored Warfare and World of Tanks, key distinctions ensure both are worthwhile for any tank game veteran. Armored Warfare transports World of Tanks’ remarkably approachable gameplay into a more modern era, providing tankers with a wider array of equipment, newer tanks, and a selection of versatile tank technology that adds significant variation to the core gameplay.
Additionally, Armored Warfare introduces PvE (Player versus Environment) content, allowing you to team up with friends to take on AI enemies and progress through tank ranks without constantly facing highly skilled PvP opponents. As a live game, Armored Warfare consistently receives updates that introduce new tanks and expand the gameplay, ensuring you’ll never be short of a formidable boomstick on wheels.
Battlefield 6
After a brief lull, Battlefield is back, and it’s making a grand entrance. While chaotic boots-on-the-ground combat is a staple, we’re here to talk about tanks, and Battlefield 6 delivers plenty of them. Check out our Battlefield 6 review for more details on the 32v32 FPS action, complete with an array of armored vehicles at your command.
Destruction is a monumental aspect of what makes Battlefield 6 so immersive, and no element leverages it more effectively than the tanks. Is an enemy soldier hiding inside a building? Simply demolish the structure around them. Is a wall obstructing your path? No problem—you’re driving a multi-ton metal monster, after all.
Steel Armor: Blaze Of War
What’s more enjoyable than blowing things up and plowing through buildings? Perhaps carefully micromanaging your tank’s crew and internal mechanisms to the point where you feel less like a warrior and more like a meticulous factory machinist. Steel Armor: Blaze of War offers a unique perspective on tank games, focusing on the battlefields of the 1980s Iran-Iraq conflicts.
Tank enthusiasts will undoubtedly appreciate the game’s intense attention to detail—while there are only two tanks available, both are rendered with astonishing accuracy, inside and out. Despite being intricate and sometimes daunting for newcomers, Steel Armor’s fervent dedication to military hardware makes it an essential experience for tank game veterans and fans of war games seeking a more modern setting.
Panzer Elite Action: Gold Edition
Bundling two classic Panzer titles into a single Steam release, Panzer Elite Action: Gold Edition offers hours upon hours of driving tanks across World War II battlefields and unleashing explosive destruction—which is precisely what we sometimes need. Incredibly user-friendly yet packed with engaging mechanics and unlockables, Panzer Elite Action is a tank game centered on surviving famous historical campaigns to fight another day.
Playing on either the Allied or Axis side in various iconic conflicts, Panzer Elite Action grants you command of four to five tanks. It then unleashes you to wreak havoc and strategically take cover behind hedgerows. While it may lack the extreme realism of its predecessor, Panzer Elite, the necessity of caring for your crew and upgrading your equipment creates a compelling experience from start to finish.
Arma 3
A sprawling 170-mile pristine military sandbox awaits players venturing into Arma 3, an expansive open-world game that imbues your tanking with an overwhelming sense of scale. Gone are the days of distressing close-quarters encounters in bombed-out cities.
Arma 3 introduces a new source of anxiety: the constant need to scan horizons for emerging threats. With buildings and natural cover often scarce, survival and victory hinge on identifying and neutralizing the enemy before they even know you’re there.
While not exclusively a tank game, Arma 3 boasts an incredible level of realism that vividly brings modern tank warfare to life. Indeed, its authenticity has even led news organizations to mistakenly identify its gameplay footage as actual war. Playing as the armored spearhead of a massive army is what Arma 3 does best: supporting ground assaults, hunting down enemy tanks, and wreaking havoc on strongholds. Plus, when you decide to disembark from your heavy armor, you still have access to one of the best sniper games available.
Steel Division 2
Steel Division 2 is another exceptional title for armchair generals. This strategy game is set during the pivotal events on the Eastern Front of World War II. You take command of the entire Soviet army, fighting back against the Nazi regime in real-time skirmishes across 25 maps and multiple game modes.
When we mention maps, we’re talking about battlefields up to 150×100 kilometers in size, featuring over 600 unit types that you can deploy to achieve victory in solo campaigns, cooperative missions, and even multiplayer matches with up to ten players on each side.
Unlike many other RTS games, Steel Division 2 places less emphasis on resource gathering. Instead, it focuses squarely on the thrilling aspects of commanding tanks and obliterating enemies—the real fun stuff. If you’re eager to witness 20 generals clash across a massive map, then this is the game for you.
Red Orchestra 2
While tanks aren’t the sole focus of this realism-heavy Eastern Front shooter, how seamlessly they integrate into its gritty, mud-and-guts gameplay creates some of the finest tanking moments you’ll experience.
Red Orchestra 2 employs a ballistics and armor penetration mechanic similar to War Thunder, ensuring that every encounter between two tanks transforms into an adrenaline-fueled duel where superior knowledge and pinpoint precision conquer brute force. The constant threat of instant, fiery death at the hands of enemy anti-tank troops is just one element that solidifies its status as one of the best multiplayer games on PC.
Company of Heroes 3
Company of Heroes 3 is an RTS that actively encourages tactical ingenuity and the full utilization of your tanks. Cover, line-of-sight, and suppression are paramount to success, meaning you’ll need to direct your resources using genuine battlefield tactics to repel the Axis threat.
Delivering a devastating punch and capable of turning the tide of any battle, the tanks of Company of Heroes 3 are a joy to unleash, sending shells blazing toward enemy infantry units and watching the casualties mount. Like all well-designed tank games, Company of Heroes 3 acknowledges the inherent vulnerabilities of a tank, punishing players who send their armored units into the fray without due caution. Take a look at our Company of Heroes 3 review to read our full impressions of this strategy game.
Panzer Corps
Panzer Corps represents old-school turn-based strategy gaming at its absolute finest. It places you in the boots of a Wehrmacht general, tasking you with overseeing and managing operations across 26 grueling Axis campaigns.
Setting aside the historical context, the primary focus of Panzer Corps is firmly on leading your units to victory. Over 800 unit types are distributed among 20 unit classes, resulting in an endless array of attacking options for both sides. If that isn’t intricate enough, every unit possesses approximately 20 parameters by which its strengths and weaknesses are judged—it’s everything a battlefield mathematician could desire, making it one of the best strategy games available.
Battlezone
Previously a VR-exclusive title, Rebellion, the acclaimed developers behind the Sniper Elite series, have resurrected the Battlezone series with all the modern enhancements you could wish for. The game is now fully playable outside of VR, but you still have the option to don a headset if you want to elevate your experience. Step into the cockpit of a Cobra, the most powerful tank of all time, and crush anything that stands in your way with a diverse arsenal of weapons and power-ups.
Commander, your training is now complete. You are equipped with the knowledge of the best tank games to play on PC and are ready to embark on your own campaign of destruction. Should you desire some action outside the confines of your tank, you might also find our guide to the best WW2 games invaluable. Until then, keep your eyes on the horizon, a shell in the barrel, and enjoy the thrill of tank combat!