World War 3 is an FPS game from The Farm 51, envisioning what humanity has managed to avoid for quite some time now: a global war. The players have to pick a side, East or West, to join in an all-out conflict taking place all over Europe (for now). In the game’s current state, the matches unfold similarly to Battlefield’s conquest mode but with a few nice additions that make this game stand out.

World War 3 takes advantage of all the movement mechanics of modern shooters. The player character can crouch, prone, lean and even vault at the press of the button. However, there are a few more interesting mechanics. During prone, double tapping on the side (AA/DD by default) will perform a rolling over animation, turning the character on their back or returning to standard prone position. While running, pressing the crouch key (C by default) will trigger a slide animation which helps in avoiding bullets as well as in putting the character in crouch. Even jumping from heights has been taken care of with an impact landing that slows the player while mitigating fall damage. These are nice touches that add quite some tactical value.

The soldier’s armor is part of the game’s modular damage system. The armor is composed of two parts: helmet and body. Each armor part can be destroyed without killing the players, instead leaving them in a more vulnerable state for the fights to come.

Guns run out of ammo, armor is destroyed and health is lost. None of these are irreversible unless you died. With the right kit you can resupply on the go and help your teammates while at it. Before spawning, each player can change their equipped gadget choosing from a number of options which include among others: ammo pack, med pack, equipment pack (restores armor) and first aid. Choose your gadget wisely to fit the needs of your squad.

Marking enemies is a common mechanic in first person shooters and World War 3 doesn’t make an exception from this rule. However, in this game, the marking system isn’t as overpowered. In order to mark a target, you have to aim precisely at it and press the assigned key (X by default). The mark vanishes quickly when enemies get out of your line of sight.

This guideline is simple, short and important. I had a bit of time adjusting to this gameplay mechanic because it’s not found in any of the shooters I currently play. You cannot reload while aiming down sight.

This is an unexpected feature in a team oriented tactical shooter, but one that’s implemented really well. Each player has access to 4 customizable strikes which can be used during any match. The strikes can call for various types of air strikes, reconnaissance flights and even combat vehicles. In order to use a strike, a player has to accumulate points equivalent with the strike’s price. The points are generated by any useful action capturing points, including kills, assists, suppressive fire, resupplying teammates, etc. All strikes have a cooldown and in the case of spawning vehicles, there’s a limit to how many vehicles a team can have deployed at a time.Upgrading a strike through the game's customization system will increase that strike's price to use.

Vehicular combat in World War 3 is quite a blast, being more engaging and realistic than some of the dedicated tank games out there. One of the coolest features is the modular damage. Each vehicle has a number of modules which can be increased through customizations. Each module can be damaged, affecting the vehicle’s performance. For example, shooting the optics module will gradually damage it until the visibility is compromised. This modular system makes each vehicle susceptible to damage from a wider array of weapons, allowing skilled players to counter and even outplay them.

Being able to spawn a vehicle on the battlefield through your hard-worked points is quite satisfying. But having your vehicle stolen is not. The developers at The Farm 51 have implemented an extremely intelligent system that’s in great synergy with how vehicles are acquired. The players can lock their own vehicle (L by default) making them available for the team, squad or only for themselves.

A damaged vehicle can be repaired in two ways. The fastest way to repair a vehicle can be performed on the field. You can go out of the vehicle and while standing next to it, press the repair kit key (4 by default), to trigger a repair menu with all the modules and their health. If the situation is dire, you can return to the assigned repair place in the base where you can repair as well as resupply the vehicle.

World War 3 comes with friendly fire enabled by default. This extremely immersive and sometimes frustrating mechanics does serve its purpose quite well. The risk of damaging teammates can prevent the spam of explosive weapons and gadgets seen in other similar games. Make sure you pay attention where you shoot and where you throw your grenades as there is a penalty for your team killing actions.

Progression is an almost indispensable system in this day and age. World War 3’s progression comes in multiple layers. Finishing a match will award experience, credits and supplies to the players. The experience goes into leveling up the player’s rank which will award 10000 credits for each rank up. The credits can be used in a system of unlocks which allows players to customize the loadout the way the want and in the order they prefer. Last but not least, the supplies are used on the game’s strategic map to help your side (East/West) win more matches.

The loadout customization is quite an intricate feature. The credits earned can be spent to unlock a wide variety of items covering from new strikes and upgrades for them, new guns and attachments and even cosmetics. The customizations are quite spendy and in the beginning is indicated to focus on upgrading a gun. It’s worth noting that most gun unlocks like the scopes or grips are global as they are interchangeable between the guns.
Equipping your soldier with combat gear will increase the carry weight affecting the movement speed. So keep this in mind when customizing your loadout as each of the three weight values (light, medium and heavy) has its benefits for certain play styles.

It pains me to write this as I learned it the hard way. In order to earn experience, supplies and most importantly credits, you need to finish the match in progress. Leaving or disconnecting will make you ineligible for rewards.

I talked a lot about World War 3’s gameplay mechanics and features. However, I made this specific header just to convey how important victories are in this game. Many shooters these days lack any competitive features, making victories less important than they should be. And while World War 3 doesn’t have a leaderboard or ranked matches, it does have a reward system based on merit. This system awards more credits to those who are performing better in a match and these credits are increased exponentially by winning the match. Playing well and helping your team allows you to unlock more customizations.

World War 3 is featuring a wide variety of gameplay mechanics, but by no means is it a complete game. There are still obvious bugs and issues, the polishing is not quite there yet and severe lag can happen. World War 3 will launch through the Early Access program with 3 maps and a few guns. New maps, guns and a Battle Royale mode along other features will be added as the development progresses. Remember this before purchasing the game.

As someone who has played throughout the Alpha, I can say that World War 3 is shaping up quite nicely. There’s a lot of attention to details and a drive to innovate some of the aspects of the genre that has been stale for the past years. Nothing can guarantee what will happen with the game through Early Access, but it sure looks promising now.
As always, I will try to keep track of this guide and update it according with the changes made to the game throughout its development. See you on the battlefield!

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