How Monetization Works in HEAT

World of Tanks: HEAT doesn't charge an entry fee. Downloading is free, playing is free, and you can progress through the game without spending a single HEAT-Coin, the premium currency bought with real money. Keeping a live game running costs money, though, so some conveniences carry a HEAT-Coin price, and every one of them is optional.

If you read our last Breakdown on how visibility and spotting work, you've seen how a fight plays out from the inside. The one before it, on how stats work, covered what your vehicle's stats actually mean. This one steps back from the battlefield to the systems around it: the Battle Pass, boosters, and cosmetics.

Every purchase in HEAT is optional, and the mechanisms around those purchases work the same way for everyone. A few rules apply to everything below:

• Every reward in Season 1's Battle Pass is earnable for free, just by playing.
• Cosmetics change how your Agent and vehicle look. Some are sold for Credits, some for HEAT-Coins only. They don't affect how a vehicle performs in combat.
• Boosters impact how fast you earn certain resources. They don't change your odds in a fight.

Season 1's Battle Pass runs July 1 through September 2. It's a single 50-tier list, and every reward on it, including the LEO 2FK and the LEO 2KST, can be earned for free just by playing. Beyond the two tanks, its rewards mix cosmetics, in-game currency, and other progression items across all 50 tiers.

Progress runs on Intel, the currency you earn by fighting battles and completing missions.

The Premium Pass doesn't add rewards or change what's on offer. What changes is how you get to them. In the free pass, rewards become available in sequence as you progress. With the Premium Pass, every tier is unlocked from the start, and you decide which rewards to spend your Intel on first. You can purchase the Premium Pass at any time before all rewards are unlocked. Once it's active, it stays active for that Battle Pass, including once the pass is archived.

Season 1 ends on September 2. From Season 2 onward, a Battle Pass you haven't finished remains playable after its season ends: you keep claiming from it at your own pace and can still obtain every reward in it.

HEAT calls this feature the Archive, and here's how it's designed to work. When a new season starts, the previous season's Battle Pass moves into the Archive, and your progress on it carries over unchanged. Anything you've already claimed stays claimed. If you bought the Premium Pass while that season was live, it remains active for the season's Battle Pass after it's archived, so you go on claiming its rewards in whatever order you like. You can also purchase the Premium Pass for an archived season you didn't buy it for at the time.

Season 0's short Weekly Passes aren't part of this system, so they don't carry into the Archive.

Intel is designed to work as a single balance shared across every Battle Pass, so it isn't archived along with a season. Intel you've earned and haven't spent is still yours to spend on the next season and archived Battle Passes. Use it on whichever pass you're claiming from, live or archived, and switch between them freely.

HEAT runs on four currencies. You earn Credits, Tech, and Intel by playing, and converting is an option on top of that rather than a replacement for it: HEAT-Coins convert into Credits, Credits convert into Tech, and XP can be moved between vehicles.

Conversions run one way: Credits can't be converted back into HEAT-Coins, and Tech can't be converted back into Credits. And there's no direct step from HEAT-Coins to Tech. If you need Tech and you're short of Credits, the game walks you through both stages in one flow, so it reads as a single action.

Transferring XP works on a different principle. It moves Vehicle XP from one vehicle to another, and HEAT-Coins are the fee for doing it rather than something you get out of it. You'll find it as Add XP on a vehicle's progression screen.

You earn Intel from battles and missions, and spend it on Battle Pass rewards. It doesn't convert into or out of the other three currencies.

Boosters are consumable purchases that speed up specific kinds of progress for a set number of battles. There are three types:

Each costs 100 HEAT-Coins. Boosters count down per battle: a 10-battle booster is spent across the next 10 battles you play, whenever you play them. You can have one of each type active at once, so a Vehicle XP booster, an Agent XP booster, and a Tech booster can all run at the same time.

The math below uses a round 3,000 Vehicle XP per battle. Your own numbers will vary depending on performance, vehicle, and game mode, and PvE battles tend to score lower than PvP ones.

Cosmetics follow one rule: visual only, no effect on combat. Most are one-time buys you own permanently once purchased, unlike boosters, which are used up as you play.

HEAT's cosmetics come in a few forms: skins for your vehicle, skins for your Agent, plus charms, paints, and camos.

Store cosmetics rotate on their own schedule. New bundles arrive over the course of a season, and each one is available for a set window. Whatever's live when you're reading this might not match what's described here: check the in-game Store for the current lineup.

You always know what you're getting before you spend. Playing earns the Intel that unlocks everything in the Battle Pass. Premium lets you choose the order you claim in, boosters speed up Vehicle XP, Agent XP, and Tech earnings, and cosmetics change how you look. The Store's lineup moves as seasons come and go, and what you unlock stays put. Missing a season still leaves two ways back to its tanks: the archived Battle Pass, and the in-game Store for Credits.

We'll keep explaining systems like this as HEAT grows, including how the Archive works once it's live. Check out the current Battle Pass and the in-game Store to see where things stand right now.

If you'd like to try one of the boosters covered above, we have a code set aside for readers of this article. It adds a Vehicle XP booster to your account, no purchase required.

The code is live from 15:00 UTC on August 24 until 15:00 UTC on September 1, 2026. There's a cap on how many times it can be used, so it may run out before then.

Redeem it on the redemption page, and if you haven't used a bonus code before, check out our short guide to the process.

← Previous: How Visibility and Spotting Work

Next: (upcoming)