Although the genre has been somewhat neglected recently, many great titles are perfectly playable today (sometimes much better, even, than the day of their release). This does not go without a lot of dung to avoid.
Silent Hunter 5
Silent Hunter V, developed by the Romanian branch of Ubisoft in 2010, remains the last submarine AAA game released by a large publisher. On the level of realization, you will not find better in these pages. The basic set was far from perfect, but a certain vdr1981, pillar of the community Subsim.com, stood against fate. He compiled hundreds of different mods and made them compatible with each other to create The Ultimate Hunter V Silent. His work is called the Wolves Of Steel, 1.4 GB of data that transform the game into depth. In addition to a myriad of visual improvements, TWOS changes the dynamics of the campaign, outlines all the simplification options and gives access to the real instruments that the Herr Kaptain used to fine tune their torpedo firing solutions. And it’s amazing. Everything is better, more beautiful, more complex, more realistic. For example, you will no longer have a permanent magic indication of your submarine’s position. You will have to ask a crewman to calculate it or better, determine it yourself using a sextant. Count on a few hours of tutorials to start feeling comfortable in this impressive mega mod. It is in my humble opinion, the best underwater experience available currently.
Atlantic Fleet
Originally, Atlantic Fleet is an iOS game. Released on PC at the beginning of 2016, in general, indifference – we didn’t even test it in Canard PC, like big incompetents –, it nevertheless succeeded over the months to build a small reputation among the fans of naval simulation. It’s not just a submarine game; it’s a fleet of destroyers, frigates, aircraft carriers in turn-to-turn tactical confrontations. The distance between the units, the detection, the smoke screens as well as the elevation of the guns must be played. The submersible part includes the (basic) management of sonar, the launching of torpedoes and several types of underwater bombs. Atlantic Fleet will not compete with a real hardcore simulation like Silent Hunter, but the game is original, well done and amazingly fun, to the point that I can warmly recommend it as soon as you see it on sale around ten dollars.
From the Depths
From the Depths is good, good, stupid. It’s the Space Engineers of the Navy. This strange game is to build a fleet of warships, submarines and aircraft like you would with Lego blocks, stacking blocks, modules, weapons, and, taking into account several physical parameters such as weight distribution and buoyancy. Then you put your creations in front of an AI-led fleet, and you watch this little world get high in a wild futuristic fight. The problem is, ideas come fast. Why not build a giant submarine capable of surfacing to launch bombers? Or a submersible aircraft carrier that would fire flying torpedoes? Two years after its early release on Steam, the game is still not over but continues to be practiced religiously by tens of thousands of players. To try without hesitation if you feel the soul of an insane naval architect.