"World in Conflict" focuses on real-time tactics (RTT) gameplay, in a similar manner to "Ground Control", a game also developed by Massive Entertainment, in which players deploy units onto a battlefield and must carefully make use of them to achieve victory, making use of support assets to further assist them. "World in Conflict" contains three factions: the United States, Soviet Union, and NATO. While players may only play as US and NATO forces during the single-player campaign, all three factions can be used in multiplayer games.