Simulation vs arcade
War Thunder, from Gaijin Entertainment, sits at the realistic end of the vehicle-combat spectrum. Its tanks model penetration angles, spalling, ammo racks and individual crew members, and its higher difficulty modes strip away aim assists entirely. It is also a combined-arms game — you can field ground vehicles, aircraft and warships — which gives battles a scale and variety HEAT never attempts. HEAT goes the other way on purpose: it is tank-only, arcadey and built around hero abilities, so a match is about positioning, cooldowns and ultimates rather than simulated ballistics.
Depth vs immediacy
War Thunder rewards patience. The learning curve is steep, the vehicle roster is vast, and mastery takes months. HEAT is designed for immediacy: a small launch roster of eight Agents and fifteen vehicles, short objective matches, and readable hero kits that a shooter player can understand in a single session. Both are free-to-play and both have monetisation debates — War Thunder over grind and premium vehicles, HEAT over a new and still-tuning economy — but the shape of your time investment is completely different.
Which should you play?
Pick War Thunder if realism, combined arms and long-term depth are what you want from a vehicle game, and you are happy to invest the time its systems demand. Pick HEAT if you want tanks with superpowers, quick matches and a low barrier to entry across PC, console and cloud. One is a simulator you sink into; the other is a hero shooter you drop into — choose based on whether you want to study a game or simply play it.
