Every World War game, ranked
All 2 World War games we hold, spanning 2021 to 2022: 2 ranked by the GamingPickz Score and plotted below, the rest listed in release order so nothing in the series is missing. Together they carry 87,115 Steam reviews.
Where to start
- For the best-reviewed: World War Z (GamingPickz Score 7.3), the highest-rated entry we can score.
The World War games on the grid
Compare the whole catalogueThe same 2 games, plotted rather than listed. The two axes below are the ones the ranking is built from, so a game sitting high and right is a game the formula placed near the top. Change either axis to see the field a different way. Where we hold a publisher wordmark, the game is drawn as its mark rather than a dot.
2 games have both
Axes are fitted to these 2 games rather than the full 0 to 100 scale, because a filtered list shares a narrow band and would otherwise sit in one corner. End values are marked. A point on the left edge is the lowest of thesegames, not a low score.
Players. The share of Steam reviews marked positive, pulled toward the catalogue average in proportion to how few reviews stand behind it. A game with 200 reviews moves a long way toward the average; one with 200,000 barely moves at all. Without this a title sitting at 100 percent on nine reviews outranks Half-Life 2 at 98 percent on 278,000.
Popularity. A blend of two things that are not the same. Audience is how many people wrote a Steam review, which is a floor on how many played it. Reach is how many language editions of Wikipedia document the game, which is cultural footprint rather than sales. A game can score high on one and low on the other: a huge free-to-play title has audience without reach, and a landmark console exclusive has reach without a Steam audience at all. Where both exist they are averaged; where only one does, that one carries it.
- PC
Every point links to that game's entry. The value map and the reception map are fixed views of the same data.
How positions are decided
No paid placement, no favouritism, live third-party data
- Placed by the published method, not by us. Every coordinate is computed from the axis definitions and weights printed on this site. Nobody moves a point. See the axes.
- Nothing here is paid for. No sponsored placements, no promoted slots, no arrangement of any kind affects a position. If that ever changes it will be labelled and sit outside the ranking.
- No favouritism, including our own. The 16 games we have written full reviews of are scored by exactly the same formula as the other 1,510, from the same third-party inputs, and they land where it puts them. Our own opinion of a game does not enter its coordinates.
- A position is not an endorsement. It says how a game was received and what it costs, not that we recommend it. Where we do recommend something, it carries a written review with a name on it.
- Fetched from live third-party data. Player sentiment from Steam, critic aggregates as published on store pages, prices checked hourly, attention from Wikipedia. Each figure carries its source and the date it was read, and we do not adjust any of them.
2 best World War games, ranked
Ordered by GamingPickz Score. Every figure links back to the source that produced it.
World War Z at a glance Released 2021 Studio Saber Interactive Inc Player sentiment 82% positive of 32,551 Critics No aggregate Price $14.79 Steam Deck unsupported Install size 50 GB Accessibility 1 declared feature Raw 82% shrinks to 82.0 on 32,551 reviews, giving 7.3. No critics data, so that weight was redistributed across the rest rather than counted as zero.
What the data supports- Cloud saves and cross-platform play, so progress follows you between machines.
Worth checking first- Flagged for mature content on its store page.
- Valve rates it Unsupported on the Steam Deck.
- 2
World War 3
Best for: Trying the genre without spending anything
5.5GamingPickz Scoremedium confidenceWorld War 3 at a glance Released 2022 Studio New Generation Games Player sentiment 54% positive of 54,564 Critics No aggregate Price Free Steam Deck unsupported Install size 80 GB Accessibility 1 declared feature Raw 54% shrinks to 54.2 on 54,564 reviews, giving 5.5. No critics data, so that weight was redistributed across the rest rather than counted as zero.
What the data supports- Free to download, so trying it costs only time.
Worth checking first- Flagged for mature content on its store page.
- Valve rates it Unsupported on the Steam Deck.
- Multiplayer only. There is no solo mode to fall back on.
Best and worst entry
The best-received World War game we can score is World War Z at 7.3. The lowest is World War 3 at 5.5, a 1.8-point spread across the series. The GamingPickz Score is a composite of player sentiment, critics and popularity, computed the same way for every game.
Cheapest way in, and best value
- Cheapest right now: World War 3 at Free. Prices are read live from Steam and move.
- Best value: World War Z, the most GamingPickz Score per dollar in the series at its current price.
On a Steam Deck
Valve's own Deck compatibility rating for the World War entries on Steam:
- Unsupported: World War Z, World War 3
Platforms across the series
Where the 2 World War games have landed, counting every entry we hold:
| Platform family | Entries |
|---|---|
| PC | 2 of 2 |
The World War series, game by game
Every World War game we hold, in release order. Each description is the game's own, from Steam where it has a listing and Wikipedia for the older entries, never ours.
- 2021
World War Z
7.3World War Z is a heart-pounding coop third-person shooter for up to 4 players featuring massive swarms of hundreds of zombies, focused on fast-paced, gruesomely spectacular action. (Steam)
Plot
The novel is framed around a series of interviews conducted by a fictionalized version of Max Brooks, author of The Zombie Survival Guide (this is a real book in-universe, where it is known as the " Civilian Survival Guide"). An agent for the United Nations Postwar Commission, Brooks travels the world a decade after the end of what is most commonly referred to as the "Zombie War". The pandemic begins twenty years previously in the early 21st century,… (Wikipedia)
Characters
Max Brooks as the Interviewer, explicitly identified by name as Max Brooks in the audiobook, an agent of the United Nations Postwar Commission and implied to be the author of the Civilian Survival Guide . Steve Park as Kwang Jingshu, a Chinese physician. Frank Kamai as Nury Televadi, a smuggler and human trafficker. (Wikipedia)
Reception
Reviews for the novel have been generally positive. Gilbert Cruz of Entertainment Weekly gave the novel an "A" rating, commenting that the novel shared with great zombie stories the use of a central metaphor, describing it as "an addictively readable oral history. " Steven H Silver identified Brooks's international focus as the novel's greatest strength and commented favorably on Brooks's ability to create an appreciation for the work needed to combat a… (Wikipedia)
- 2022
World War 3
5.5World War 3 is a free-to-play tactical online multiplayer FPS where the world is your battleground. Outgun the enemy in thrilling, team-based skirmishes with a huge arsenal of weapons, vehicles, gadgets, and drones at your disposal. (Steam)
World War, head to head
Two entries side by side on score, price, specs and reception:
World War vs other series
How World War stacks up against other series in the same genre, as a whole:
Also: World War vs Max Payne, World War vs Quake, World War vs BioShock, World War vs Deep Rock Galactic, World War vs Infestation, World War vs Killing Floor, World War vs Left 4 Dead, World War vs Outlast, World War vs POSTAL, World War vs Thief, World War vs Zombie Army
Common questions
How many World War games are there?
We hold 2 World War games in the catalogue, released between 2021 and 2022. 2 of them carry enough Steam data to rank; the rest are listed in release order below, including console-only entries with no Steam listing.
Which World War game is best?
By the GamingPickz Score, World War Z rates highest at 7.3. That is a composite of player sentiment, the critic aggregate and popularity, computed the same way for every game, not our opinion. The full ranking is above.
What order should I play the World War games in?
Release order is listed below, from 2021 to 2022. For most series that is also story order, but we list dates rather than telling you a canon; the timeline is read from Wikidata.
More franchises
Browse every game franchise ranked the same way, or head to the full grid.