Wargaming just announced that it has launched World of Tanks Blitz on Android. That should help the company expand the community of the free-to-play tank-warfare game well beyond the 10 million players it already has on Apple’s iOS devices.
Wargaming has become a 3,500-person company thanks to the success of its PC online game World of Tanks, which has been downloaded more than 100 million times. It is adapting the game to mobile with an approach that has surprisingly few compromises in the downshift from PC.
In the Android version, players can join 7-on-7 tank battles in all sorts of battlegrounds online. There’s a new line of British tanks available today, and Android players can square off against players on iOS.
“We are thrilled to release World of Tanks Blitz to Android users and continue to deliver triple-A [massively multiplayer online games] in the competitive mobile space,” said Andrey Ryabovol, the director of global operations at Wargaming, in a statement. “Since the initial launch on iOS, we have worked to build the Android version based on player feedback, and we are extremely happy to provide cross-platform play between Android and iOS users.”
The Cyprus-based company released the iOS version in June. In just five months, the company has gotten more than 10 million installs. Average daily use is 60 minutes per user, with a 20-minute session length.
Victor Kislyi, the chief executive of Wargaming, said that Blitz took four years to perfect since the developers had to create a simple and accessible game that used touch-screen controls instead of a mouse and keyboard.