TANKS
red vs blue · a war fought on graph paper
A real-time strategy game in the tradition of Command & Conquer — ore harvesters, power plants, a sidebar build queue and a tech tree that ends in something enormous — except every tank, every soldier and every explosion is drawn in marker pen on a school exercise book.
No download. No account. No launcher. It starts in about two seconds.
A 1990s strategy game, in a browser tab
If you have ever sat waiting for a refinery to finish while an enemy raid came over the ridge, you already know how to play this. Nothing about the loop has been modernised, simplified or turned into a mobile game.
Ore, credits, harvesters
Harvesters drive out to the ore fields on their own, fill up, and drive back to the refinery. Fields run dry. Kill the other side’s harvester and you have taken something real off them.
A power grid worth attacking
Every building draws power and every power plant supplies it. Run a deficit and production slows to a crawl, defences go quiet and the radar goes dark. Bombing power plants is a strategy, not a consolation prize.
A real tech tree
Power plant, refinery, barracks, tank factory, radar dome, service depot — each unlocking the next. Riflemen and rocket soldiers, light and heavy tanks, V2 launchers, tesla coils, and a Mammoth at the top of it.
Orders you already know
Left-drag to box-select. Right-click to move or attack.
A to attack-move, S to stop, 1–9
for control groups, and a rally point on every factory.
An opponent that plays the game
The AI follows a build order, keeps two harvesters mining, expands, rebuilds what you destroy, masses an army until it is worth spending, and then sends it at your weakest building. It also raids while you are busy.
Everything is a drawing
Buildings ink themselves in as they are constructed. Units are sketched into existence at the factory door. When something dies it is scribbled out in four fast strokes and then erased.
The Margin Wars
Twelve hand-built missions, each with its own map, its own kit and its own problem to solve. It is not the skirmish map with more enemies on it.
1 · First Blood
a squad, a village square, and red coming in one man at a time
No base, no economy, no tanks. Four men holding a crossroads while the company works out whether it is coming.
4 · Break the Wire
a fortress that is not worth attacking
So do not attack it. There are no power plants inside those walls — they are on a farm in the south, lightly held. Turn the lights off instead.
8 · The Long Hour
ten minutes in a fort with no construction yard
Nothing can be repaired and nothing can be replaced. Every coil that goes down stays down, and you plug the hole with men.
11–12 · Lights Out / The Inside Page
one commando, thirty tesla coils, and one door out
Two halves of one mission. In the first he blows things up. In the second he steals something — and the second is played inside the building, on a floor plan cut out of solid wall.
If you have been looking for this for twenty years
A lot of people played Dune II, Command & Conquer or Red Alert at the wrong age, and have been quietly looking for the same feeling ever since. It is a surprisingly hard thing to find.
Most of what gets called RTS today is either an esport with a two-hundred APM floor, a 4X game that takes a weekend, or a mobile builder with a timer on it. The thing in the middle — put up a refinery, get two harvesters running, mass twelve tanks and go and see what happens — mostly stopped being made. TANKS is thirty minutes of exactly that, and it is free.
Games like Command & Conquer
What is actually still worth playing in 2026, including the official remasters and the open-source engines.
Games like Red Alert
Tesla coils, mammoth tanks and the specific silliness that made Red Alert what it was.
Free browser RTS games
Real-time strategy that runs in a tab, with no launcher and no install.
Three minutes to your first tank
- Power plant first. Everything else draws power, and building anything before you can run it just means it runs badly.
- Refinery, then a second harvester. One harvester is an income. Two is an economy. This is the single decision that wins most matches.
- Barracks, then tank factory. A handful of riflemen buys you the time to get the factory up. They are cheap and they are meant to die.
- Mass twelve tanks, then go. Trickling units at a base one at a
time feeds them to it. Gather, then attack-move with
A.
Longer version: how to play TANKS, the RTS beginner’s guide, or the build order guide.
Questions people actually ask
Is TANKS actually free?
Yes. There is no price, no account, no email, no launcher, no advertisement and nothing to buy. It is one person’s game, put on the internet.
Do I need to download or install anything?
No. It is a web page. It runs on the browser you are reading this in — Chrome, Firefox, Safari or Edge, on Windows, macOS or Linux. Your progress is saved in that browser.
Is this Command & Conquer?
No, and it is not affiliated with the people who own it. It is an original game built on the same mechanics the 1990s RTS invented — harvesters, a power grid, a sidebar build queue, a tech tree — drawn as if it were doodled in the back of a school exercise book.
Can I play it on a phone or tablet?
It will load, but it wants a mouse. Box-selecting a group of tanks and right-clicking a target is a two-button gesture, and touch does not have a right button. A laptop or desktop is the machine to play it on.
Is there multiplayer?
Not yet. There is a twelve-mission campaign and a skirmish mode against an AI that builds a real base, keeps harvesters running and masses an army before it attacks.
How long is the campaign?
Twelve missions, roughly six to eight hours if you are not rushing. Progress unlocks level by level and is kept in your browser, and you can save mid-mission.
Red is already building
Twelve missions, a full skirmish mode and an opponent that harvests, expands and comes looking for you. It costs nothing and starts in about two seconds.
play TANKS free