Getting started

Hold the Line, or Go Looking for Trouble

Tanklands is a browser-based tank game about defending ground you cannot afford to lose. You command a single tank, you build the position around it, and then you are the one who has to hold it.

Two ways to fight

Every mission is one of two shapes. In a Core Defence mission you are dug in: there is a core to protect, waves of enemy armour rolling in along known approach lanes, and a quiet prep phase before each one in which you spend your credits. In a Patrol mission the map opens up and you go out into it, working across hostile expanses rather than waiting for them to come to you.

Both run on the same tank and the same controls, so nothing has to be relearned between them. The difference is where the pressure comes from: one asks whether your defences are good enough, the other asks whether you are.

Building the position

Credits earned in the field go into the build menu between waves. Walls and gates shape where the enemy can drive; posts anchor the chain and can be mounted; cannons, laser turrets and howitzers cover the approaches with very different profiles - direct fire, ricocheting beams, and arcing shells that land with a telegraph and a splash.

• Power units keep the turrets live - build too much and the grid runs short.
• Repair bays recharge and heal any vehicle that drives onto them, yours included.
• Radar and the tech centre extend what you can see and what you can build.
• Fire points give infantry-scale cover on the cheap.

Turrets upgrade in tiers, so a well-placed cannon is usually a better investment than a second one somewhere vague. Nothing is free-standing: a gate is only as useful as the wall it sits in, and a turret is only as useful as the lane it actually covers.

You are not alone out there

An ally squad deploys with you and takes orders. By default they hold a defensive perimeter, but you can have them follow you, rally to a point, or focus fire on whatever you are shooting at - hit something with a shell and they will pile onto the same target. When one drops below a third of its hull it will break off, find a charged repair bay and patch itself up before returning.

Press TAB to lift out of the turret into commander view, a top-down read of the whole position. It is the fastest way to see which lane is about to break, place a structure with some perspective, or redirect the squad mid-wave. You cannot use it while your tank is wrecked, which is exactly when you will want it.

Campaigns, seeds and the editor

Play the introduction campaign to learn the systems in order, roll a fresh one from a seed when you want new ground, or build your own from scratch and share it. The editor gives you the map and the fight: paint terrain, cut rivers, lay roads, place gates and lanes, then set the order of battle wave by wave - what arrives, when, and how much of it.

Maps are hex-based and generated from a seed, so the same seed always produces the same ground. That makes a campaign something you can hand to someone else and know they are fighting the battle you actually built.

Where it came from

Tanklands is a prototype, built on our earlier game Tank of Duty - now with more tanks and a lot more destruction. It runs entirely in the browser with no install and no plugin, and it is still actively being built, so expect it to change under you in the good way.

New here? Start with the introduction campaign's first Core Defence mission. Build two cannons covering the gate, keep a power unit ahead of demand, and do not be too proud to sit on a repair bay while the wave burns itself out.

Play Tanklands