World of Warships is a naval warfare-themed free-to-play multiplayer online game developed and published by Wargaming.

World of Warships is a slow-paced tactical shooter game with three basic types of armament: naval artillery, torpedoes and attack aircraft.

Scenarios pit a team of players against increasingly difficult waves of AI-controlled opponents in operations with unique objectives.

Standard battles, a classic game mode involving teams, each with their own base; Domination, which features several key areas on the map that grant points when captured; Arms Race, which focuses on improving the characteristics of the player's ships by capturing key areas; The game features combat missions, challenges,[7] campaigns[8] and collections[9] for the sake of creating extra goals, rewards and a meaningful progression for players during their time with the game.

Other tie-in IPs include Warhammer 40K, Transformers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Star Trek, and more.

Battles take place on a limited number of specific maps, each depicting a certain location with different geographical layouts, usually featuring numerous islands of varying size that influence play.

Moreover, some maps are unique for a certain game mode, e.g. PvE scenario battles based on historical events such as the Dunkirk evacuation.

The warships presented in the game cover periods from the early 20th century, from the dawn of dreadnought battleships to the 1950s (prior to the proliferation of guided missiles), including many ships that were planned but never put into production in real life.

Dutch, Commonwealth (Canadian, Australian, New Zealand and Indian), Spanish, and other smaller European navies (including Swedish, Polish, Greek and Turkish) are also represented, along with a Pan-Asian tree featuring ships from various East Asian (Chinese, Taiwanese and South Korean) and Southeast Asian (Thai, Indonesian and Malaysian) navies, and a Pan-American nation featuring ships from the navies of the Latin American countries (such as Brazil, Argentina, Peru and Mexico).

The game originally had four different types of ships that each offer their own style of play: battleships, cruisers, destroyers, and aircraft carriers.

[18] Battleships are heavily armoured with the most hit points and their main guns can deal significant shell damage with each volley, but they are slow, difficult to maneuver and take a long time to reload; destroyers are fast and agile with rapid guns, but are weaker in both gun damage and hit points, and have to rely more on the much slower torpedoes against larger ships; cruisers have aptitudes halfway between the formers, being faster than battleships and stronger than destroyers.

Battleships and some heavy cruisers can launch spotter aircraft that increase their observation range as well as drop depth charges on submarines within a designated zone.

[23] After a petition opened by South Korean players was signed 40,000 times, Wargaming removed the Rising Sun Flag from Imperial Japanese warships in July 2013.

[30] On April 9, 2015, pre-order packages consisting of premium warships and access to the closed beta test became available for purchase by players.

[31] Open beta testing for World of Warships started on July 2, 2015, as the final step prior to the game's formal launch.

[35] An iOS and Android version titled World of Warships Blitz was released by Wargaming Mobile on January 18, 2018.

However, it was designed to have faster-paced battles, faster progression, and had several systems revamped to fit console and mobile players.

[49] GameSpot awarded it a score of 8.0 out of 10, saying "The thrills that await, along with the promise of unlocking advanced ships down the road, make World of Warships an enticing expedition into the sometimes turbulent waters of free-to-play games.

"[46] The Escapist awarded it four out of five, saying "With its tense naval battles and huge array of historical vessels, World of Warships is the free-to-play MMO that can make a wargamer out of anyone.