What Is OpenFront

OpenFront is a free browser real-time strategy game you play at openfront.io. Hundreds of people can share one map. You expand tiles, raise a troop cap with Cities, trade from Ports, and — if the bank allows — fire Atom Bombs, Hydrogen Bombs, or MIRVs. It is not a single-player campaign with a story chapter list. It is a public PvP map that is already at war when you join.

This page is the encyclopedia overview. URLs live on the Links Hub. Chat and tournaments live on Discord and community. Store SKUs live on Steam store links and Steam Early Access.

History: a WarFront fork that became its own game

The public repository openfrontio/OpenFrontIO describes the project as an online RTS focused on territorial control and alliance building, and as a fork/rewrite of WarFront.io. The license is AGPL-3.0. Developer and publisher credits: OpenFront Inc and Evan Pellegrini.

That history matters because older clips and muscle memory from WarFront will lie to you. OpenFront has its own gold steps, its own SAM rules, Ranked 1v1 and Ranked 2v2, a Doomsday Clock that is a land-share test rather than a circle, and a map pool that includes Sol and Las Vegas Strip. Treat WarFront knowledge as a distant cousin, not a patch notes file.

Community scale on the web is on the order of 200,000 daily and 1 million monthly players. That is why public FFA feels crowded, why teaming accusations show up in Discord, and why the Steam client is an install around a game people already play in a tab.

How to Play Open Front

How a match plays

You spawn on a small patch. Troops grow fastest near 42% of cap. Terrain is plains, highlands, and mountains — plains are cheaper to take, mountains are slow and expensive. Cities add +250,000 troop cap per level at 125k / 250k / 500k / 1M. Ports and Factories share a cost counter. Defense Posts cost 50k then +50k to 250k, cover 30 tiles, do not stack, and die when the tile is captured.

Win is about 80% non-fallout land. FFA Overtime, when the lobby uses it, waits until minute 30 then lowers the threshold. Alliances last about five minutes. Betrayal applies 30 seconds of half defense. Nukes: Silo 1M, Atom 750k, Hydro 5M, MIRV 25M + 15M × n. First Atom plan 1.75M. SAM 1.5M then 3M; v33 lets SAMs intercept MIRV warheads.

Hotkeys 1–0 place City, Factory, Port, Defense Post, Silo, SAM, Warship, Atom, Hydro, MIRV. Cheatsheet: hotkeys. Prices: gold costs. First-hour clicks: getting started.

Modes and maps

Public queues split FFA, teams, and specials. Teams include Duos, Trios, Quads. Ranked has 1v1 and, since v33, Ranked 2v2. Doomsday Clock (v33) raises required land share after a 10-minute grace: 2 / 4 / 7 / 11 / 17 / 25 / 35% in FFA — again, not a shrinking circle.

Maps include World, North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Oceania, Britannia, Japan, Italy, Iceland, Gibraltar, Amazon, Gulf of St Lawrence, NYC, East Asia, Australia, Pangaea, Mars, Pluto, Deglaciated Antarctica, plus v33 boards such as Sol, Russia, United States, France, Germany, China, Vietnam, Scandinavia, and Las Vegas Strip. Impassable terrain appears on several of those. File them by archetype on map archetypes.

Platforms

• Browser: free, no download, openfront.io.
• Steam: Early Access starts 17 September 2026. Windows, macOS, Linux, Steam Deck. Offline play, preloaded assets, cross-play. $4.99 OpenFront (Warlord month, cosmetics, verified name) and $9.99 Masters (Sovereign month, extra cosmetics). The browser stays free.

You do not need Steam to play v33 content. You need Steam if you want the install, offline, or those cosmetics. Details: Steam Early Access.

Community and this wiki

People gather on Discord, Reddit, YouTube @openfrontio, and OpenFront Masters events. Contributors open pull requests on GitHub. This wiki is unofficial. We cite public facts (patch notes, store copy, repo license) and we do not pretend to be OpenFront Inc.

If you arrived here from a search for “OpenFront wiki,” keep going: Links Hub for URLs, Discord and community for humans, Steam store links for the storefront, Updates Hub for v33 and the 17 September 2026 date. The game itself is still the browser tab at openfront.io.