Plenty of games have dreams of becoming an e-sport. Some become successful and others… well, they’re just fun to play. ESL, the competitive arena for European players, has just announced it will pick up the World of Tanks for a 5 month long season.

Before writing this, I went over and watched about an hour worth of gameplay. Even though I have not experienced it first hand, I can tell it’s a very competitive and perhaps even an addictive game for the player. In the ESL tournaments, players will engage in 7 vs. 7 team-based combat. The series will be single elimination.

Despite the amount of action this game brings to the table, it did not seem to have too much spectator value. It was like watching baseball practice. One tank shoots. Other tanks shoot. The tanks seem to last awhile when shot at it (depending on the tier it seems) which I like but they don’t move fast enough to use cover. There really isn’t any cover though… Because a lot of the gameplay I saw took place on a field. And even the fights in the cities seemed to all be on a conveniently clear street. That makes the preferred method of combat a long-ranged goose-chase. I guess it might be different on a pro team where you will have 7 different players with varying combination of tank types. But regardless, this game is definitely more enjoyable to the players on the team than the people who might be watching it.

The maps are very large and the tanks play out rather realistically so strategy and positioning appear to play a key role in game play. It reminds me of Starcraft competitions where there’s a long session of thinking and set-up, then a quick burst of heated combat to decide the winner. I guess that can make for very exciting moments. Either way, avid WoT players will be able to compete for a total prize purse of 10,500 Euros over the course of 5 months…