The submarine-captain simulator used to be a pretty big deal, but it—among many other simulator genres—has fallen out of favor in the past decade. Depending on who you ask, the last great submarine sim was one of the last few Silent Hunter games released between 2005 and 2010—all of which are surely heavily modded in some way.
No more, though, as Deep Water Studio’s UBOAT is set to release some time soon and seems to have really taken genre fans with its blend of operations detail and life on-board the infamous convoy-raiding German submarines of World War 2. First released in 2019, the Early Access period is now coming to a close with the release of a beta for the complete game this past week.
Though it’s definitely a simulator of fighting on a World War 2 submarine it’s also fairly customizable for the genre, and you can make it a bit less finicky if you prefer. Genre fans seem to agree that it’s the best in a long while—It’s floating 16,218 reviews, and 82% of them are positive, as of press time.
The baseline of UBOAT is a pretty extensive system of damage and a long-term career mode. It’s very survival-focused and mission-driven, in that you must make choices about what you can and cannot accomplish on the seas with the resources you have—resources that are ever-diminishing as you take damage in combat and ever-increasing as you become a more famous commander with access to the latest vessels and equipment.
Though you can automate most crew behaviors you can also take direct control of the periscope, hydrophone, torpedo tubes, and deck gun. It’s pretty interesting in that way—some players clearly enjoy it as a slightly-removed game where they command and the orders are followed, while others are definitely going hands-on with their gear.
You can find UBOAT on Steam, where it’s $30.