Not hands-on tested. This is a reception report built from Steam's public review data, read October 16, 2026, not from GamiPrime playing the game. War Thunder carries Steam's "Mostly Positive" label, 71.2% of 791,273 reviews across every language, and 72.1% among the 328,350 reviews Steam classes as English. Splitting that headline figure by language shows something different from the pattern GamiPrime has reported for some other large-review titles in this cluster: no single oversized language group is dragging War Thunder's score down. Russian, the second-largest group checked, reads better than English. The language groups that read Mixed are comparatively small, and together they hold only a minority of the reviews behind this title's rating.
GamiPrime already has a separate verdict on War Thunder covering its PC specs, platform support and the headline rating; this report looks only at what the review counts show once split by language, and does not repeat that angle.
War Thunder Steam reviews, by language
Twenty-one individual language groups, covering 97.6% of the 791,273 all-languages total, each read from Steam's public review API on October 16, 2026 between roughly 01:50 and 02:10 UTC (all-languages and English totals reused from the earlier same-day reading).
| Language | Reviews | Share of all reviews | Positive | Steam label |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| All languages | 791,273 | 100% | 71.2% | Mostly Positive |
| English | 328,350 | 41.5% | 72.1% | Mostly Positive |
| Russian | 168,981 | 21.4% | 75.4% | Mostly Positive |
| Simplified Chinese | 97,814 | 12.4% | 45.9% | Mixed |
| German | 32,022 | 4.0% | 75.5% | Mostly Positive |
| Polish | 26,135 | 3.3% | 80.3% | Very Positive |
| Spanish | 21,687 | 2.7% | 84.9% | Very Positive |
| Brazilian Portuguese | 17,514 | 2.2% | 85.9% | Very Positive |
| Turkish | 15,504 | 2.0% | 79.3% | Mostly Positive |
| French | 14,398 | 1.8% | 77.0% | Mostly Positive |
| Korean | 10,488 | 1.3% | 66.5% | Mixed |
| Ukrainian | 8,772 | 1.1% | 68.8% | Mixed |
| Czech | 8,630 | 1.1% | 79.9% | Mostly Positive |
| Italian | 4,836 | 0.6% | 79.3% | Mostly Positive |
| Traditional Chinese | 4,082 | 0.5% | 54.2% | Mixed |
| Dutch | 3,333 | 0.4% | 85.5% | Very Positive |
| Thai | 3,225 | 0.4% | 79.4% | Mostly Positive |
| Spanish (Latin America) | 3,020 | 0.4% | 82.7% | Very Positive |
| Portuguese (Portugal) | 2,028 | 0.3% | 89.0% | Very Positive |
| Japanese | 510 | 0.1% | 71.8% | Mostly Positive |
| Vietnamese | 456 | 0.1% | 84.2% | Very Positive |
| Indonesian | 257 | 0.0% | 81.7% | Very Positive |
Source: Steam public appreviews API, per-language query, read October 16, 2026 (see Method). Percentages and shares are calculated by GamiPrime from Steam's positive and total counts; the labels are Steam's own, returned by the same API. English and the all-languages total come from the earlier same-day reading; the other twenty rows were read fresh for this report.
Read this with care, the way any all-languages figure should be read. Four of the twenty-one languages checked read Mixed: Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Korean and Ukrainian. The other seventeen read Mostly Positive or Very Positive, including Russian, the second-largest group behind English, at 75.4%. That is a different shape from a reception split that is carried by one dominant underperforming language.
Why the Mostly Positive label isn't carried by one dominant language
In some other reception reports GamiPrime has published in this cluster, a single very large language group sits at or near Mixed and pulls the all-languages figure down by sheer size. War Thunder's numbers do not follow that pattern. Russian, the second-largest group GamiPrime checked at 168,981 reviews (21.4% of all reviews), rates the game Mostly Positive at 75.4%, better than English's 72.1%. Simplified Chinese, the group that actually reads lowest among sizeable samples (45.9%, Mixed), is the third-largest group at 97,814 reviews, 12.4% of the total, well behind both English and Russian.
Adding up the four Mixed-rated groups GamiPrime checked, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Korean and Ukrainian, gives 121,156 reviews, about 15% of the 791,273 all-languages total. The other eighty-five percent of reviews GamiPrime can account for sit in language groups Steam rates Mostly Positive or Very Positive. Our reading: War Thunder's all-languages Mostly Positive score is a reasonably representative blend of how most of its player base rates the game by language, not a figure propped up against one outsized dissenting group the way some comparable reception reports read. Why Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Korean and Ukrainian reviewers rate the game meaningfully lower than the other seventeen languages checked, all of which clear 71%, is not stated anywhere in the sources read for this report. Any explanation, whether pointing to server routing, regional matchmaking population, localization quality, pricing in local currency or something else entirely, would be a guess, so this report offers none.
Recent reviews against the lifetime rate, in English and Simplified Chinese
A lifetime percentage can hide a recent shift. GamiPrime pulled the 200 most recent reviews in English (reused from the earlier same-day reading) and in Simplified Chinese, the group that reads lowest among the sizeable samples checked, through Steam's "recent" filter.
| Language | Latest 200 reviews, positive | Date range covered |
|---|---|---|
| English | 77.5% (155 of 200) | October 13-15, 2026 |
| Simplified Chinese | 49.5% (99 of 200) | October 10-16, 2026 |
Both recent samples read a few points above their own lifetime figures: English rises from 72.1% lifetime to 77.5% in its latest 200, and Simplified Chinese rises from 45.9% lifetime to 49.5% in its latest 200. The two windows are close in width, roughly two to six days, unlike some other reception reports in this cluster where one language's recent window spans weeks longer than another's. Simplified Chinese's latest 200 reviews still read as Mixed by the standard Steam applies to the lifetime figure, so this is not a shift in label, only a modest uptick. Neither rise is explained by anything in the sources read for this report; both are reported as observations, not conclusions.
What this data cannot tell you
Several things sit outside what a Steam review count, split by language, can establish.
- Why Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Korean and Ukrainian read lower than the other seventeen languages GamiPrime checked. The API returns counts and a recommend flag, not a reason; we read no individual reviews for this report and offer no explanation.
- Whether the gap reflects different player populations, regional server or matchmaking experiences, localization quality, local pricing, or something else. Any of those would be a guess from this data alone.
- The languages outside the twenty-one checked here, roughly 2.4% of the all-languages total, which this report does not attribute to any language.
- A recent-window reading for any language besides English and Simplified Chinese, or for a period longer than the roughly two-to-six-day windows Steam's cursor returned.
- How the game plays, how it performs on a given machine, or what its in-app purchases are worth. Review counts measure how many reviewers recommend the game, not why, and not what the in-app purchases Steam flags on the listing actually cost; see our guide on how free-to-play PC games make money for what that flag generally means before you spend.
Our reading of War Thunder's Steam reception
Steam's own numbers support a specific, narrower claim than "this is a Mostly Positive game across the board." Most of the language groups GamiPrime checked, by both count of languages and share of reviews, rate War Thunder Mostly Positive or better, and the second-largest group, Russian, reads better than English. The groups that read Mixed, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Korean and Ukrainian, are real and worth knowing about, but they are a minority of the reviews GamiPrime can account for, around 15%, not the dominant voice behind the headline figure. A reader who assumes a huge non-English language group is quietly dragging this rating down, a pattern worth checking given some other reception reports in this cluster, would be reading War Thunder's numbers incorrectly. For how War Thunder's review base compares with other free-to-play titles GamiPrime tracks, see the ranking of free-to-play PC games by Steam reviews, which uses the same method.
Frequently asked questions
Do Russian players rate War Thunder higher than English players?
Yes. On October 16, 2026, Russian reviews were 75.4% positive across 168,981 reviews, against 72.1% for English.
Which language groups rate War Thunder Mixed?
Four of the twenty-one checked: Simplified Chinese (45.9%), Traditional Chinese (54.2%), Korean (66.5%) and Ukrainian (68.8%). Together they hold about 15% of all reviews.
Are recent War Thunder reviews improving?
Slightly, in both groups sampled. The latest 200 English reviews were 77.5% positive and the latest 200 Simplified Chinese reviews 49.5%, each a few points above its lifetime figure.
Method
Enough to redo the counts by hand; the scripts used are not published.
- All-languages and English-only totals. Reused from GamiPrime's earlier same-day reading: Steam's public appreviews endpoint for app 236390,
purchase_type=all,num_per_page=0, forlanguage=allandlanguage=english, read 2026-10-16 (live, exact time not logged). - Per-language breakdown. Same endpoint and parameters, queried once per additional language code (
russian,schinese,german,french,spanish,brazilian,koreana,japanese,turkish,polish,ukrainian,thai,italian,portuguese,latam,dutch,czech,vietnamese,indonesian,tchinese). Read October 16, 2026 between roughly 01:50 and 02:00 UTC. Totals and Steam's label come from thequery_summaryobject of each response. - Independent re-read. The same endpoint queried again for
language=allandlanguage=englishin the same session, returning 791,285 (563,512 positive) and 328,360 (236,659 positive) respectively, both still 71.2% and 72.1%; the dozen-review difference from that earlier reading is treated as new reviews arriving between reads, not a correction, and the facts-file figures are the ones cited in this article. - Recent-window sample. Same endpoint,
filter=recent,purchase_type=all,num_per_page=100, cursor pagination to 200 reviews, forlanguage=schinese. Two pages of 100 returned 43 and 56 positive (99 of 200, 49.5%); the newest review in the sample timestamped 2026-10-16 00:22:15 UTC, the oldest timestamped 2026-10-10 12:30:36 UTC. Read in the same window as the per-language totals. The English latest-200 sample (155/200, 77.5%, October 13-15, 2026) is reused from that earlier reading rather than re-pulled. - Coverage. The 21 individual languages (English plus the 20 others) total 772,042 reviews, 97.57% of the 791,273 all-languages total used in this article. The remainder sits in languages not individually queried for this report.
Sources read
- War Thunder's official Steam listing and public review data (app 236390), read October 16, 2026 (UTC): the all-languages and English-only totals and the latest-200 English sample from GamiPrime's own earlier same-day reading, and the twenty-language breakdown plus the latest-200 Simplified Chinese sample read directly from Steam's public review API for this report (see Method for the exact queries and times).
Last verified: October 16, 2026.
Advantages
- Most reviews, by volume, sit in language groups Steam rates Mostly Positive or better: English (41.5% of all reviews, 72.1%), Russian (21.4%, 75.4%), German (4.0%, 75.5%), Polish (3.3%, 80.3% Very Positive) and thirteen more groups between 71% and 89%
- Across the 21 individual languages GamiPrime checked (97.6% of all reviews), the four Mixed-rated groups found, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Korean and Ukrainian, together hold only about 15% of the reviews; the other roughly 85% read Mostly Positive or Very Positive
- The most recent 200 reviews read a few points above the lifetime rate in both of the two language groups GamiPrime sampled for recency: 77.5% in English (October 13-15, 2026) against a 72.1% lifetime figure, and 49.5% in Simplified Chinese (October 10-16, 2026) against a 45.9% lifetime figure
Disadvantages
- Simplified Chinese, the third-largest language group GamiPrime checked at 97,814 reviews (12.4% of all reviews), rates War Thunder Mixed at 45.9%, the lowest share among the twenty-one languages checked
- Two smaller groups, Korean (66.5% of 10,488) and Ukrainian (68.8% of 8,772), also read Mixed, and a third, Traditional Chinese (54.2% of 4,082), reads lower still
- No source read explains why these four groups rate the game lower than the other seventeen languages GamiPrime checked, all of which clear 71%; Steam's review API returns counts, not reasons
