Tank shooter Tyr opens its first public playtest until August 2

Tyr, a free-to-play multiplayer tank shooter from Stoke Games, has opened its first public playtest. The test is running now and closes on August 2, with the game due to enter early access later this year.

Stoke Games is staffed by developers who previously worked on League of Legends, Valorant, StarCraft 2 and Destiny 2. Tyr departs from those games' formats: it is a sci-fi tank game built around visibility and reconnaissance rather than hero abilities, set across large, brightly coloured landscapes.

Armour, angles and sightlines

Armour placement carries real weight. Each tank has a colour-coded armour profile with thicker plating on specific sections of the hull, and each gun has its own penetration value. Shots land harder head-on than at an angle, which makes positioning as much a part of an engagement as aim.

Detection works on the same logic. Every tank has a maximum vision range and a detection radius, both shown on the minimap, and tanks are invisible to one another until formally detected — a state flagged by a HUD icon. Rock Paper Shotgun, which covered the playtest, summarised the rule plainly: what you cannot see can turn you into a crater.

That system gives the tank classes distinct roles:

• Lighter tanks are harder to spot, which suits them to sniping from range
• Heavier tanks use bushes and other cover to close the distance unseen
• Hovertanks can strafe and tilt forward to fire down into gorges
• Each tank carries a special ability, such as conjuring a wall

The free-to-play multiplayer tank space is not empty — World of Tanks has held it for well over a decade — but Tyr's pitch is the balance between that genre's technical detail and a lighter, more readable presentation. The playtest is the first chance for players outside the studio to judge whether it holds.