Tank game stages: how to clear all six

Tank City Reboot has six tank game stages, and each one is built to test a different skill. This guide walks through all six: what each map is made of, which malware tanks it sends, and a plan to clear it. Every map and number here comes from the game's own code, so you can plan instead of guessing. Tank City Reboot is free and plays in your browser, on a computer or a phone.

How every stage works

Each stage is a square map, 13 tiles wide and 13 tiles tall. Your antivirus tank starts at the bottom, just left of the CPU core. The core sits at the bottom middle inside its own firewall.

Twenty malware tanks come at the core, four on the field at a time. They enter at the top left, top middle and top right. You clear the stage by destroying all 20 before any of them hits the core.

Three things rise as you go. The tanks get tougher, from worms that die in one hit to rootkits that take four. They arrive faster: a new tank enters every 2.6 seconds on stage 1, and a quarter second sooner on each stage after. And the map gives you less cover.

Malware heads mostly for the CPU core, sometimes for you, and sometimes anywhere. So the core is the thing to protect, not your own score.

Know your enemies' speeds too. Your tank moves at 50. A worm moves at 30 and a rootkit at 34, so you can outrun both. A trojan moves at 58, faster than you, so do not try to chase one down. Spyware is slower, but its shots fly at 240, faster than your own shots until you pick up Overclock.

Stages 1 and 2: FIREWALL and CACHE

Stage 1, FIREWALL, opens with a true fact: "A firewall checks network traffic against rules and blocks what breaks them." The map is almost all firewall, which breaks a block at a time when shot. There are a few silicon blocks at the sides and the top, and a cross of encrypted zone in the middle.

Its 20 tanks are 18 worms and 2 trojans. This is the stage to learn the controls. Stay close to the core, shoot up the open lanes, and let the worms come to you.

Stage 2, CACHE, puts a row of silicon blocks across the top, then a grid of firewall walls in the middle with three silicon blocks inside it. Silicon stops every shot until your cannon is fully overclocked, so you cannot shoot through those blocks yet.

It sends 14 worms, 4 trojans and the first 2 rootkits. One rootkit is the 11th tank, which also carries a power-up. Your first hit drops the power-up, even though the rootkit needs three more. The other rootkit is the 20th and last tank, so save your patience for the end.

Stages 3 and 4: COOLANT and ENCRYPTION

Stage 3, COOLANT, is the most important map to understand. Two rivers of coolant cross the whole map. Tanks cannot cross coolant, so each river has only two gaps, one on the left side and one on the right. Every tank that wants the core must come through those gaps.

The good news: shots fly over coolant. You can sit below the lower river and fire up through it at tanks waiting to cross. The fact this stage opens with is about heat: "When a chip gets too hot, it lowers its own clock speed to cool down. This is called thermal throttling." You can read more in our post on thermal throttling.

Stage 3 also brings the first spyware: 9 worms, 5 trojans, 4 spyware and 2 rootkits.

Stage 4, ENCRYPTION, is full of encrypted zones, and they hide any tank inside them. Some sit right above the core. The trick is in the code: only firewall, silicon, the core and the edge of the map stop a shot. Shots pass through an encrypted zone, so a shot fired into one can still hit a tank you cannot see.

Its lineup is 5 worms, 6 trojans, 5 spyware and 4 rootkits. When you lose sight of a tank near the core, fire into the zone it entered.

Stages 5 and 6: DATA BUS and KERNEL

Stage 5, DATA BUS, draws a ring of data bus lanes around the map and a bar across the middle. A data bus is slippery: tanks slide before they stop. From the code, your own tank slides about three quarters of a tile after you let go. So let go early when you need to stop in front of a gap.

It sends 2 worms, 6 trojans, 6 spyware and 6 rootkits. Every power-up carrier on this stage is spyware: the 4th, 11th and 18th tanks.

Stage 6, KERNEL, is a fortress. A firewall frame runs around the edge, a ring of silicon with a few gaps sits inside it, and a firewall box with silicon at its heart sits in the middle. The stage fact explains the name: "The kernel is the core of an operating system. It decides which program runs on the processor, and when."

The lineup is the hardest: 4 trojans, 6 spyware and 10 rootkits. Silicon blocks your shots here until your cannon reaches Overclock level 3, so every Overclock you kept from earlier stages pays off now.

What happens after stage 6

The game does not end at stage 6. Stage 7 brings back the FIREWALL map, stage 8 the CACHE map, and so on. Two things change.

• Every looped stage sends the KERNEL lineup: 4 trojans, 6 spyware and 10 rootkits, on every map.
• The tanks get faster: enemy speed goes up 8% each time the six stages loop.

New tanks also arrive faster. The gap between them shrinks each stage until it reaches 1.1 seconds at stage 7, and it stays there.

When the run ends, the game tells you why: "THE CPU CORE WAS BREACHED" or "EVERY TANK WAS LOST". Then it shows "REACHED STAGE" and your number. That number is a good goal to beat next time. Each game remembers your best score in that browser.

A worked example: one plan for all six tank game stages

Here is a full run, stage by stage. You start with 3 lives.

1. Stage 1. Learn the lanes. Do not leave the bottom third of the map. Hit the 4th, 11th and 18th tanks as soon as they blink, and collect what they drop for 500 points each.
2. Stage 2. Keep any Overclock you have. Your level carries from stage to stage, but losing a life sets it back to zero. Wait for the last rootkit; it is the 20th tank.
3. Stage 3. Park below the lower coolant river, between the two gaps. Fire up over the coolant at tanks waiting to cross, and turn to whichever gap a tank reaches first.
4. Stage 4. Count the tanks. If one disappears into an encrypted zone above the core, fire into the zone until it is gone.
5. Stage 5. Move in short taps on the data bus so you do not slide past a gap. Three spyware carry the power-ups, and spyware shots are fast, so hit them from the side.
6. Stage 6. With Overclock level 3, cut new paths through the silicon. Without it, guard the core's wall and let the rootkits come to you through the open lanes.

Points add up along the way. If you shoot every tank yourself, kills alone are worth 2,200 points on stage 1 and 6,600 on stage 6, which is 19,500 by the end of stage 5. Add a few power-ups at 500 each, and the extra life at 20,000 can arrive around stage 5. It comes only once a game, so use it to push through KERNEL.

For the power-ups themselves, see our guide to tank game power-ups. For your very first game, start with the retro tank game guide.

Frequently asked questions

How many stages does Tank City Reboot have?

Six: FIREWALL, CACHE, COOLANT, ENCRYPTION, DATA BUS and KERNEL. After stage 6 the maps repeat with harder, faster tanks, so a run can go on as long as you survive.

What is the hardest stage?

KERNEL, stage 6. It sends 10 rootkits, which take four hits each, behind a ring of silicon that blocks your shots until your cannon is fully overclocked.

Can you shoot through coolant and encrypted zones?

Yes. Shots fly over coolant, and only firewall, silicon, the core and the edge of the map stop a shot, so shots pass through encrypted zones too.

Does the second game have stages too?

Tank City Zero Day uses waves instead: every wave is a freshly made arena, with a boss every fifth wave. Our boss-wave guide covers it.

Get started

Play Tank City Reboot: it is free, plays in your browser on a computer or a phone, and needs no account. Read each stage's opening fact, then see how far past KERNEL you can get.