Best submarine games?

[MadMaxHellfire]

I want to explore this, both simulations and action-orienteds are welcome. Skip Subnautica, I want something "watered on Earth" (I definitely couldn't use "grounded").
I remember Ubisoft had a series (Silent Service?), but IIRC its latest iteration drowned between bugs and copy-protection as their only focus, with perhaps a side of always-online.
My only related experiences are World of Warships and Up Periscope on C64, so go wild.

 

[fork]

Silent Hunter 3 with some mods.
https://subsim.com/radioroom/index.php

 

[Victor1234]

I want to explore this, both simulations and action-orienteds are welcome. Skip Subnautica, I want something "watered on Earth" (I definitely couldn't use "grounded").
I remember Ubisoft had a series (Silent Service?), but IIRC its latest iteration drowned between bugs and copy-protection as their only focus, with perhaps a side of always-online.
My only related experiences are World of Warships and Up Periscope on C64, so go wild.

You're thinking of Silent Hunter. Great series, still unmatched in terms of realism and difficulty. I personally stopped at SH 3 (tons of mods available as well), but they made 2 more after that weren't so well received by fans. I think 4's reputation has recovered a bit, but never played that or 5.

Then you have UBOAT. It leans more heavily on crew management than any other sub game, and sacrifices some of the mechanics around the actual tech limitations of the time (simplifies target calculations and torpedo settings essentially) but there are realism mods to crank up the difficulty.

The grognard community at Subsim put out a game called Wolfpack. It can be played singleplay but really designed around coop (hence the name) of hunting convoys with friends. There may be something similar that's online only but I forget the name now.

That's the main ones for WW2 subs.

It's an oldie but if you really like modern subs, Jane's 688 Hunter/Killer is the best of the lot. The manual is super thick but will teach you everything you ever wanted to know about how subs work.

Sub Command from 2001 is also a good one that lets you play Russian ones (which these games usually don't).

There's a bunch of others that are naval themed and have subs, but they're just another ship type. I see a lot of people like the sub play in Cold Waters for example.

 

[Jelerak]

If strategy games are OK so there's a brilliant oldschool sci-fi submarine RTS Submarine Titans. Kinda Starcraft underwater. Avaialble everywhere now, including GOG, Steam or in neutral waters.

 

[Bigg Boss]

Barotrauma.
Barotrauma.
Did I say Barotrauma?
it is hard though.

 

[Raghar]

Barotrauma.
Barotrauma.
Did I say Barotrauma?
it is hard though.

It's still in early access.

 

[Kruyurk]

Barotrauma.
Barotrauma.
Did I say Barotrauma?
it is hard though.

Is it interesting in solo or friends are required ?

 

[Bigg Boss]

Barotrauma.
Barotrauma.
Did I say Barotrauma?
it is hard though.

It's still in early access.

Yes.

Barotrauma.
Barotrauma.
Did I say Barotrauma?
it is hard though.

Is it interesting in solo or friends are required ?

You might need to nab a friend or two. Bots are ok though.

 

[spectre]

Yep. Silent Hunter III is where it's at. SHIV "might" be worth checking with mods, but I haven't checked on them in years.
I am required by law to say, there are no Silent Hunter games with higher number.

I've been meaning to try UBOAT for some time, but wasn't sure if it's actually feature complete.
Playway was a bit of a red flag, cause they mostly publish shovelware for autists, but I am told there are exceptions.

I remember a few sub-themed oldies from way back: Archimedean Dynasty, SubCulture, SubWar2050 (I'm rather nostalgic about the last one), these aren't sims,
but since you mentioned Subnautica, I'll list them for completion's sake.

 

[Raapys]

Archimedean Dynasty is the finest sub game. It's even got a bit of sim in it, unlike the sequels.

Silent Hunter 3 was decent. Needs a lot of patience though, both to learn and to play.

 

[Victor1234]

I've been meaning to try UBOAT for some time, but wasn't sure if it's actually feature complete.
Playway was a bit of a red flag, cause they mostly publish shovelware for autists, but I am told there are exceptions.

IIRC the devs are genuine and just (weirdly) picked Playway as publisher instead of being the usual Eastern European asset store flippers devs who work for Playway. They don't seem to have much business sense. They also called their game Uboot at first but had to change it early on for legal reasons or something.

Anyways, it's pretty feature complete as is. There is one more small patch coming, then it's out of early access. Their roadmap says the only things missing before full release are a game manual, better voice overs and more port clutter immersion. There was a big update in October and maybe 7 bug fixing patches since mostly on the world immersion and ports. You can build sub pens now, there is vehicle traffic on the land side of the ports, the main ones you're based out of look like they did historically, etc.

 

[Victor1234]

Oh, and I forgot the hardcorest of the hardcore. Sierra's Fast Attack from 1996. If you thought Jane's 688 was too casual....mastering this game would've qualified you to be a USN sonar operator back 20 years ago.

 

[RobotSquirrel]

Since Silent Hunter 3 has already been linked.
Aces of the Deep is cool, but then anything by Dynamix is.

Ah who are we kidding the obvious choice is Dr Riptide. Best Submarine Game Ever /s

 

[rezaf]

No love for Aces of the Deep?
I don't think I ever had more fun with a submarine game, and I'll probably never forget my most successful run, in which I decided to dedicate all my torpedos on escort destroyers, actually managed to sink the entirety of them and then proceeded to pick off the entire convoy with the single on-deck gun.
I reckon it wouldn't have worked as well in real life, as the convoy could have just dispered instead of dutifully maintaining its formation and course, but that didn't make in any less fun.

 

[Victor1234]

No love for Aces of the Deep?
I don't think I ever had more fun with a submarine game, and I'll probably never forget my most successful run, in which I decided to dedicate all my torpedos on escort destroyers, actually managed to sink the entirety of them and then proceeded to pick off the entire convoy with the single on-deck gun.
I reckon it wouldn't have worked as well in real life, as the convoy could have just dispered instead of dutifully maintaining its formation and course, but that didn't make in any less fun.

There is, but IMO Silent Hunter built on it enough to overtake it. I don't think any of the other WW2 subsims had such a large and interesting collection of gramophone music as Aces did though.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

so, it came time to actively look for them. silent hunter 3 is so damn old even tortuga takes issue, steam has it in two versions, vanilla and "wolves of the pacific". which one should i take? comments seem to point to vanilla. 4 is not on steam, so i went to check on ubi store, and their client doesn't work. store won't load. do i really want to give money to these people?

 

[Sinilevä]

so, it came time to actively look for them. silent hunter 3 is so damn old even tortuga takes issue, steam has it in two versions, vanilla and "wolves of the pacific". which one should i take? comments seem to point to vanilla. 4 is not on steam, so i went to check on ubi store, and their client doesn't work. store won't load. do i really want to give money to these people?

Wolves of the Pacific is 4. Not sure why steam decided to delete "4" from the name. But yeah the best game would be Silent Hunter 3 with the grey wolves free expansion. Not sure if steam version is mod friendly though. You could try UBOAT too if you can't make older game work, but when I tried it some years ago it had way too much annoying crew micromanagement.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

UBOAT

i'm definitely not the biggest fan of "pay now, hope for the best tomorrow, cry like a little stupid bitch the day after tomorrow".

 

[Victor1234]

UBOAT

i'm definitely not the biggest fan of "pay now, hope for the best tomorrow, cry like a little stupid bitch the day after tomorrow".

Not to you specifically, but I see UBOAT definitely has this reputation (still) in general and I can't understand why. It's pretty feature complete today, no game breaking bugs, not much more will be added besides ambience and they've even added small quality of life tweaks after people complained about certain micro around crew management (automatic pumps, etc).

Aside from their publisher (Playway) being a red flag for everyone, there's nothing that should give people the idea that it's vaporware or a gamble, but everyone still talks about it that way.

On the Steam forums for example you find lots of people saying it's not ready for full release because crew management has been automated so much there's nothing to manage anymore, then ignore that those same fans whined about crew management constantly until the devs put in all that automation (why are the sailors tired? Add a shift scheduler! Let me just make settings and avoid needing to directly control things).

Poor Uboat devs, they just can't win.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

Aside from their publisher (Playway) being a red flag for everyone, there's nothing that should give people the idea that it's vaporware or a gamble, but everyone still talks about it that way.

nothing personal against the specific game either, it's just my standard stance on early access. it might be the exception to the rule, sure, but it's still the rule for a reason.

 

[Victor1234]

Aside from their publisher (Playway) being a red flag for everyone, there's nothing that should give people the idea that it's vaporware or a gamble, but everyone still talks about it that way.

nothing personal against the specific game either, it's just my standard stance on early access. it might be the exception to the rule, sure, but it's still the rule for a reason.

Ah ok, that makes sense. IIRC they are planning to officially remove the early access status with the next patch (whenever that is).

 

[Sinilevä]

UBOAT

i'm definitely not the biggest fan of "pay now, hope for the best tomorrow, cry like a little stupid bitch the day after tomorrow".

But I didn't say anything about paying. Especially when it comes to trying things out.

 

[Parsimonious cook]

Try Cold Waters for a late Cold War setting and fairly accessible gameplay. Silent Hunter 3 and 4 for WWII.

Other than that I would say Barotrauma, its a fucking blast if you get a group of reasonable people to play with. SP with bots is possible, but nowhere neer as good. Had plenty of good time with bros just fixing machinery, mining minerals and salvaging wrecks while trying to avoid getting eaten alive by sea monsters. There is also We need to go Deeper, which is an attempt at Barotrauma in the Victorian steampunk style, but as I understand it, the player base if fairly small.

 

[Cael]

Red Storm Rising.