OpenFront
Lead your nation to global dominance in this browser-based RTS focused on territorial control, diplomacy, and large-scale alliance warfare.
Gameplay overview
Persistent world conquest
OpenFront takes the IO formula into full-scale real-time strategy. Each lobby drops dozens of players onto maps inspired by real-world regions—Europe, Asia, the Americas, and more. Expand city by city, seize resource nodes, and reinforce your front lines while enemy coalitions prepare counterattacks.
The project is a community-driven rewrite of WarFront.io, published under the AGPL with a thriving contributor base. Expect frequent balance passes, new maps, and translation updates as the open-source community iterates on core systems.
Your objective
What you are trying to achieve
The goal in OpenFront is to grow your nation from a single capital into a dominant empire. You capture adjacent provinces for income, fortify chokepoints, and push rivals off the map or past a score threshold before the round timer ends.
Matches are real-time and multiplayer, and alliances let you share vision and coordinate multi-directional attacks, so diplomacy matters as much as raw army size.
Controls
Keyboard plus mouse commands
- Use the mouse to drag-select armies, click provinces, and issue movement or construction orders.
- Scroll or use WASD / arrow keys to pan the camera across the active front.
- Tap hotkeys shown in the HUD to recruit units, toggle diplomacy panels, and open the minimap.
- Hold Shift to queue consecutive pathing orders or multi-build structures without closing the menu.
Beginner guide
Your first few minutes
OpenFront drops you into a live multiplayer map against dozens of other commanders. These steps keep your first nation alive.
- Claim nearby provinces immediately to raise income and open more fronts.
- Drag-select armies, click a target province, and issue movement orders to attack.
- Queue infantry, armor, and fortifications using the resources your cities generate.
- Fortify choke provinces around your capital before pushing deep into rival land.
- Open the diplomacy panel and consider an alliance so you can share vision and time attacks.
- Use the minimap and chat to spot weak neighbors and coordinate alliance pushes.
Advanced tips
Snowball without overextending
- Secure choke provinces around your capital before sending armies deep into rival territory.
- Coordinate alliance pushes via in-game chat—timed multi-directional attacks break stalemates.
- Upgrade economy hubs early; consistent income beats risky land grabs that leave borders undefended.
- Scout inactive neighbors—quick strikes against idle players give free cities and production slots.
Match structure
Conquer, fortify, coordinate
- Spawn with a capital city, then capture adjacent provinces to boost income and open fresh fronts.
- Use earned resources to queue infantry, armor, and fortifications that protect chokepoints or spearhead assaults.
- Join or create alliances to share vision, split responsibilities, and time multi-pronged invasions.
- Push rival empires off the map or secure score thresholds before the round timer expires.
Community & development
Open-source warfare
Because OpenFront’s client and server are public on GitHub, the community regularly contributes UI tweaks, translation packs, and balance changes. Want to help? Fork the repo, join the Discord, or translate the interface through the Crowdin project linked in the README.
Our take
Why OpenFront is a promising web RTS template
OpenFront demonstrates that classic territory-control RTS gameplay can feel responsive in the browser. Drag-selecting armies, coordinating alliance pushes, and juggling production queues all work in a way that will feel familiar to genre fans, even though everything runs in Web tech.
As an open project, it is also a rare opportunity to see how a modern, large-scale IO-style RTS is structured under the hood—and even to influence its direction if you choose to contribute.
Who will enjoy it?
- RTS players who like political maps and alliance diplomacy, and developers curious about building large multiplayer games for the browser, will both find OpenFront worth exploring.
Frequently asked questions
Need a quick answer?
- How do you play OpenFront?
- Expand from your capital by capturing adjacent provinces, build armies and fortifications, and coordinate with allies to outlast or overwhelm rival nations.
- What is the goal in OpenFront?
- Dominate the map by capturing territory and pushing rivals off it, or reach the score threshold before the round timer expires.
- What are the controls for OpenFront?
- Drag-select armies and click provinces with the mouse, pan with WASD, the scroll wheel, or the arrow keys, and hold Shift to queue orders.
- Is OpenFront free to play?
- Yes. It is a free browser RTS maintained by the OpenFrontIO community, with client and server published as open source.
- Is OpenFront multiplayer?
- Yes. Each lobby places dozens of players on a real-world map, and you can join or create alliances to share vision and time attacks.
- Is OpenFront open source?
- Yes. It is published under the AGPL, and the community contributes UI tweaks, translations, and balance changes through GitHub and Discord.
- What are the best tips for OpenFront?
- Secure choke provinces before expanding, upgrade economy hubs early, coordinate timed alliance pushes, and strike idle neighbors for free cities.