most realistic physics
most aesthetically pleasing sea
most fun to play
most immersive (pun intended (I’ll sea myself out))
most activities available at sea
most variety of sea going vessels
Games with impressive seas that I’ve played so far:
Assassin’s Creed Rogue was a hidden Black Flag 2 that came out when Assassin’s Creed Unity came out (Unity was a new engine for new consoles, but Rogue was a throwaway remix of the older game for 360 and PS3).
I recently went back through Black Flag because Ubisoft added Steam achievements to a select list of their old games, which I’m a sucker for. The game was fun to play again, tons of fun, so I’d imagine Rogue would be good, too. Although I have a friend that likes Black Flag that swears that Rogue was boring.
Although, a warning, Ubisoft cucked me in getting achievements because they actually removed DLC from the clients. You actually cannot play them without modding, and even then I’m struggling to get content that I paid for. That’s a small portion of the game if you don’t care about achievements, but it’s still something to watch out for, ESPECIALLY if you plan on purchasing the game. They sell Freedom Cry, one of Black Flag’s DLCs, separately now (might/might not have sailing in it).
Gotta go with the old school here, Sid Meier’s Pirates! No water physics, graphics from 2004, etc, but so much fun that I’ve been playing it since the original came out in 1987. Hell, i was playing the 2004 remake just last week even.
If you’re super-into it, have you tried Port Royale 2, which also came out in 2004 and is kind of the same sort of game on the age-of-sail combat side?
Yeah I’ve played it, I preferred Pirates! because it’s more about the adventure than just endless combat. Honestly I rarely even shoot the cannons on my ship except to very occasionally chain-shot someone’s sail or grape-shot their crew before I go board the ship and win it via fencing, so I’m not even all that into the combat.
Holy shit that is cancer, the audio is so bad I can’t even turn the volume on like 1%. I’m gonna go ahead and say I probably missed the boat on that one, but I appreciate the suggestion.
I like naval warfare games, but I tend towards the sim side, not the “experience being someone there” sort.
The naval warfare game that I have played the most of recently is Rule the Waves 3. That’s definitely not an eye candy game, but it models the design and development of warships from 1880 into the Cold War, the construction of fleets, and the tactics when they meet, has a lot of flexibility to simulate different stuff.
The game that I’m most looking forward to being completed is Sea Power: Naval Combat in the Missile Age, which is presently still in Early Access and last time I played it still had a lot of unfinished work. Sort of a spiritual successor to Fleet Command/Jane’s Fleet Command. Modern air and naval warfare.
It doesn’t work on Linux, so I can’t play it, but Command: Modern Operations is probably the most sim-oriented contemporary air/naval warfare program you can get.
Two other naval warfare games that I enjoy playing:
Cold Waters, which is a Cold War sub warfare game. It abstracts out a lot of the manual stuff that some other sub sims do. Covers the “hide, gather data, strike” bit.
Carrier Command 2. This is not a real-world oriented sim. You command an amphibious assault ship which can capture islands to gain resources, capture technology, and buy munitions, air and amphibious vehicles, and fight against another similar amphibious assault ship approaching you. I really like the untextured polygon aesthetic – they make stuff look pretty even with just that. Need to manage a ton of vehicles and aircraft and production and logistics vessels and support craft concurrently; as the game continues on, the load increases. If you’ve played Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising, sort of similar idea — both are based on Carrier Command. Not mission-oriented the way Hostile Waters is. It’s really intended to be played multiplayer, which I’ve no interest in, but you can play single-player if you can handle the load of doing all the tasks. I had a surprising amount of fun banging away with this one. I really think that this game would have benefited from some rebalancing and further development — some gear just isn’t all that useful, and I think that the game would make a magnificent base for a more-sophisticated-dynamic-campaign single-player-oriented game.
You mention Subnautica. I enjoyed that, though unlike the other games here, that’s not really a naval warfare game, but it’s certainly got a sea theme. I think I own the sequel, Subnautica: Below Zero, but haven’t played it, but given that you don’t mention it, I thought I would, as I’d assume that if you like the first game, you’d also enjoy the second.
Sunless Sea and its sequel Sunless Sea: Zubmariner is…hard to describe, more about providing a dark British Empire fantasy naval-themed game. Not naval warfare, but exploring a subterranean world…but it’s got sea theming. Not much like everything else on here. Mostly about creating a mood — the gameplay isn’t terribly deep.
It’s not, strictly-speaking, a sea-based game, but Nebulous: Fleet Command is a sci-fi space-based fleet warfare game. A lot of the elements that you might want in a sea-based fleet naval warfare game are there, sensors, electronic warfare, weapons and countermeasures and such.
I think that those are the sea- or sea-associated games that I’d probably most recommend, myself.
EDIT: I have not yet gotten around to playing Dredge, but I’ve read enough positive comments on it that I’d suggest at least looking at it.
Subnautica is one of the best games out there, I highly recommend it to everyone.
Sea of Thieves has the best ocean physics, the water is absolutely gorgeous, but gameplay is shallow as the game is trying to appeal to as many people as possible.
Seconding Sea of Thieves, its a fantastic family game or thing to bring everyone along for. There is no “leveling”, the only thing playing does is give you more fancy pirate drip. Game knowlege goes a decent way, but people just being handed a controler and told to act like a pirate will not feel overwelmed.
It’s the dialogue for me. Some of it was just kinda ok. But having other characters to interact with really took away the loneliness aspect that made the first game so good.
Yep exactly. I also didn’t like the hand-holdy waypoints, being told somewhere 1000m down there’s a facility is all I needed.
All the monsters are so easy to avoid with orchestrated attacks. The biggest baddest reapers of that game are just on rails and they give you a seatruck perimeter defense upgrade, which just makes every enemy extra harmless.
Also the story…
spoiler-title
you are sent down to find out what happened to your sister, then you just end up fucking off with a random alien and you dont even need to find anything out about your sister…
Oh I could not agree more with all of your points hahaha. I did like the seatruck more than the giant sea base in the first game (I never really used that…) but I also modded my seatruck so it wouldn’t go slower with more cars attached.
I gave the original Subnautica an 8/10 (on a real rating system, where 5/10 is an average game, not trash lawl) and I gave BZ a 6/10. It was good, but the original was amazing.
I enjoyed below zero but found the big moments weren’t as big. Like I’d categorize Subnautica as an exploration horror survival crafting game for the first playthrough but then drop the horror for subsequent ones. I didn’t really get the same sense of horror from below zero and don’t think 2 could do it either.
The way the original dripped the information was an experience on its own, you know, the whole reason I’m being vague to not spoil it while being OK with using quotes like “Multiple Leviathan class life forms detected. Are you sure what you’re doing is worth it?”
The second one didn’t have that, even though they really expanded on a lot of things and did a great job at making a successor exploration survival crafting game, it didn’t make me reel or feel like a hopeless situation just entered a whole new level of hopelessness. That experience is what I wish I could go back to but can’t.
Same, it’s a lot of fun with friends. They also added peaceful servers where you can’t PvP a while back so you can fish in peace.
Fair warning though: This game needs to be played with friends, it can be tedious with randoms that barely communicate and disconnect whenever they feel like it.
But if you don’t want the hassle of dealing with other players and still want full rewards, you could do all your questing over in that volcanic biome on the map.
At least back when I played that was the relatively safest area for me.
Dave the Diver has a very good early game, but eventually the grind just became needlessly tedious in my opinion. I liked going down and getting the fish etc. but the grind in mid to late game is just very time-skip heavy
I’ve played Subnautica so much that it’s no longer a challenge, even on hardcore. I installed this mod (Deathrun Remade) to increase the difficulty and had the most fun I’ve had in a while
From the Depths — it’s mind-meltingly complex, graphics are mid, and takes a few liberties with physics, but it lets you build your own warships Minecraft-style, including custom cannons, missiles, and air defense.
I like Anno 2070, a game which takes place in a world where the sea levels have risen to a barely-sustainable level. But it’s okay, because you can repopulate with the power of solarpunk machinery!
From the creators of Cold Waters you have Sea Power, I like it a lot but it is more about strategy fighting with missiles and stuff from the Cold War rather than really enjoying sea.
Ships at Sea for normal modern sea stuff (fishing, cargo etc).
Naval action for slow wooden ships in the Bahamas.
But the best pirate game still is Assassin’s Creed Black Flag. You can mod it a little and find good shaders to have it look a bit better on today’s hardware.
(I often play Assassin’s Creed Rogue on the Steam deck as it is the small successor of black flag and looks very nice on this screen size)
Good luck playing Black Flag unless you pirate it. Ubisoft fucking broke it with their shitty app. If will still work if you’ve previously installed and launched it, but if you’re a first time player, the launcher will prompt you to log in to you Ubisoft account, and then just never run.
Naval action for slow wooden ships in the Bahamas.
I haven’t seen this prior to now. The idea of a nice age-of-sail combat game sounds interesting, but…man, looking at the Steam description there has some surprises:
That is an appallingly low Steam rating.
It looks like the split is between players who think that the game is too-slow-paced and those who are fine with that, so I could see someone who wants a slow game being into it.
Jesus Christ, the DLC prices. They’re selling each additional ship for ~$50? Like, the game with all ships is ~$700? I mean, I know that DCS World and Il-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Stalingrad use that model, but I can’t imagine that the ships function as differently from ship-to-ship as the combat aircraft in those games, bring as much additional gameplay.
Jesus Christ, the DLC prices. They’re selling each additional ship for ~$50? Like, the game with all ships is ~$700? I mean, I know that DCS World and Il-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Stalingrad use that model, but I can’t imagine that the ships function as differently from ship-to-ship as the combat aircraft in those games, bring as much additional gameplay.
It’s the Star Citizen model. Players should be happy they are not paying $400 for a concept art piece of a ship.
Yep, I don’t know what happened with the reviews lately. I know they did something with the servers, maybe with the PVP server so that might have made all those players angry.
I don’t have any DLC ships, except maybe for some gifted ones and I only play solo pirate/merchant on the PVE server and don’t engage too much with the community.
It is a very slow game, combats takes ages as well as trade runs. But that is what I like in those games, I just relax sailing and trying to demast some merchants. Maybe if I was participating with the community (port raiding for your nation etc) I would be angry too.
It is, but you have to progress a little in the AC story (or download a save somewhere) and then only play the naval gameplay.
Although it is nice to be able to walk on a small patch of sand looking for a treasure or going to a city. It is an AC after all so foot and parkour gameplay is good. It offers a nice change of pace from being on your ship. Unlike the – Ahem – quadruple A Skull & Bones…
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Odyssey is more recent but Black Flag definitely has better storms
Why the “Flag” get removed?
Woops, typo
Assassin’s Creed Rogue was a hidden Black Flag 2 that came out when Assassin’s Creed Unity came out (Unity was a new engine for new consoles, but Rogue was a throwaway remix of the older game for 360 and PS3).
I recently went back through Black Flag because Ubisoft added Steam achievements to a select list of their old games, which I’m a sucker for. The game was fun to play again, tons of fun, so I’d imagine Rogue would be good, too. Although I have a friend that likes Black Flag that swears that Rogue was boring.
Although, a warning, Ubisoft cucked me in getting achievements because they actually removed DLC from the clients. You actually cannot play them without modding, and even then I’m struggling to get content that I paid for. That’s a small portion of the game if you don’t care about achievements, but it’s still something to watch out for, ESPECIALLY if you plan on purchasing the game. They sell Freedom Cry, one of Black Flag’s DLCs, separately now (might/might not have sailing in it).
Gotta go with the old school here, Sid Meier’s Pirates! No water physics, graphics from 2004, etc, but so much fun that I’ve been playing it since the original came out in 1987. Hell, i was playing the 2004 remake just last week even.
If you’re super-into it, have you tried Port Royale 2, which also came out in 2004 and is kind of the same sort of game on the age-of-sail combat side?
Yeah I’ve played it, I preferred Pirates! because it’s more about the adventure than just endless combat. Honestly I rarely even shoot the cannons on my ship except to very occasionally chain-shot someone’s sail or grape-shot their crew before I go board the ship and win it via fencing, so I’m not even all that into the combat.
Wow… 1987! Shows that fun isn’t necessarily about high end gfx :)
When I first started playing video games they were 320x200 in 4 colors, and they weren’t even good colors, they were cyan, magenta, black, and white., so yeah, I’m not that fussed about graphics.
deleted by creator
you might like Jaws on the NES play it online here https://vimm.net/vault/?p=play&mediaId=426
Holy shit that is cancer, the audio is so bad I can’t even turn the volume on like 1%. I’m gonna go ahead and say I probably missed the boat on that one, but I appreciate the suggestion.
That’s a lot of different categories.
I like naval warfare games, but I tend towards the sim side, not the “experience being someone there” sort.
The naval warfare game that I have played the most of recently is Rule the Waves 3. That’s definitely not an eye candy game, but it models the design and development of warships from 1880 into the Cold War, the construction of fleets, and the tactics when they meet, has a lot of flexibility to simulate different stuff.
The game that I’m most looking forward to being completed is Sea Power: Naval Combat in the Missile Age, which is presently still in Early Access and last time I played it still had a lot of unfinished work. Sort of a spiritual successor to Fleet Command/Jane’s Fleet Command. Modern air and naval warfare.
It doesn’t work on Linux, so I can’t play it, but Command: Modern Operations is probably the most sim-oriented contemporary air/naval warfare program you can get.
Two other naval warfare games that I enjoy playing:
Cold Waters, which is a Cold War sub warfare game. It abstracts out a lot of the manual stuff that some other sub sims do. Covers the “hide, gather data, strike” bit.
Carrier Command 2. This is not a real-world oriented sim. You command an amphibious assault ship which can capture islands to gain resources, capture technology, and buy munitions, air and amphibious vehicles, and fight against another similar amphibious assault ship approaching you. I really like the untextured polygon aesthetic – they make stuff look pretty even with just that. Need to manage a ton of vehicles and aircraft and production and logistics vessels and support craft concurrently; as the game continues on, the load increases. If you’ve played Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising, sort of similar idea — both are based on Carrier Command. Not mission-oriented the way Hostile Waters is. It’s really intended to be played multiplayer, which I’ve no interest in, but you can play single-player if you can handle the load of doing all the tasks. I had a surprising amount of fun banging away with this one. I really think that this game would have benefited from some rebalancing and further development — some gear just isn’t all that useful, and I think that the game would make a magnificent base for a more-sophisticated-dynamic-campaign single-player-oriented game.
You mention Subnautica. I enjoyed that, though unlike the other games here, that’s not really a naval warfare game, but it’s certainly got a sea theme. I think I own the sequel, Subnautica: Below Zero, but haven’t played it, but given that you don’t mention it, I thought I would, as I’d assume that if you like the first game, you’d also enjoy the second.
Sunless Sea and its sequel Sunless Sea: Zubmariner is…hard to describe, more about providing a dark British Empire fantasy naval-themed game. Not naval warfare, but exploring a subterranean world…but it’s got sea theming. Not much like everything else on here. Mostly about creating a mood — the gameplay isn’t terribly deep.
It’s not, strictly-speaking, a sea-based game, but Nebulous: Fleet Command is a sci-fi space-based fleet warfare game. A lot of the elements that you might want in a sea-based fleet naval warfare game are there, sensors, electronic warfare, weapons and countermeasures and such.
I think that those are the sea- or sea-associated games that I’d probably most recommend, myself.
EDIT: I have not yet gotten around to playing Dredge, but I’ve read enough positive comments on it that I’d suggest at least looking at it.
Dredge was one of the most compelling games I have ever played and I have been gaming since 1980.
Dredge is really cool if you are looking for something a bit more casual, but with decent narrative and very strong world-building.
Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker has some of the most fun sailing physics of any ocean game I’ve ever played.
And the physics were realistic enough that you could fill out the map before you got the ability to control the winds just by tacking the boat.
Ocean theme was stuck in my head the moment I saw the question.
Dredge is pretty fun and different!
Subnautica is one of the best games out there, I highly recommend it to everyone.
Sea of Thieves has the best ocean physics, the water is absolutely gorgeous, but gameplay is shallow as the game is trying to appeal to as many people as possible.
Seconding Sea of Thieves, its a fantastic family game or thing to bring everyone along for. There is no “leveling”, the only thing playing does is give you more fancy pirate drip. Game knowlege goes a decent way, but people just being handed a controler and told to act like a pirate will not feel overwelmed.
In jealous of anyone who hasn’t played Subnautica yet because they can still experience it for the first time.
Yessss, I would love to experience that again
There’s a sequel Subnautica: Below Zero, and apparently Subnautica 2 is in the works and headed for Early Access.
Below Zero is just not the same. I hope the new one returns to the original formula, even with it’s co-op.
It’s the dialogue for me. Some of it was just kinda ok. But having other characters to interact with really took away the loneliness aspect that made the first game so good.
Plus fuck the on-land section.
Yep exactly. I also didn’t like the hand-holdy waypoints, being told somewhere 1000m down there’s a facility is all I needed.
All the monsters are so easy to avoid with orchestrated attacks. The biggest baddest reapers of that game are just on rails and they give you a seatruck perimeter defense upgrade, which just makes every enemy extra harmless.
Also the story…
spoiler-title
you are sent down to find out what happened to your sister, then you just end up fucking off with a random alien and you dont even need to find anything out about your sister…
Oh I could not agree more with all of your points hahaha. I did like the seatruck more than the giant sea base in the first game (I never really used that…) but I also modded my seatruck so it wouldn’t go slower with more cars attached.
I gave the original Subnautica an 8/10 (on a real rating system, where 5/10 is an average game, not trash lawl) and I gave BZ a 6/10. It was good, but the original was amazing.
I enjoyed below zero but found the big moments weren’t as big. Like I’d categorize Subnautica as an exploration horror survival crafting game for the first playthrough but then drop the horror for subsequent ones. I didn’t really get the same sense of horror from below zero and don’t think 2 could do it either.
The way the original dripped the information was an experience on its own, you know, the whole reason I’m being vague to not spoil it while being OK with using quotes like “Multiple Leviathan class life forms detected. Are you sure what you’re doing is worth it?”
The second one didn’t have that, even though they really expanded on a lot of things and did a great job at making a successor exploration survival crafting game, it didn’t make me reel or feel like a hopeless situation just entered a whole new level of hopelessness. That experience is what I wish I could go back to but can’t.
I’m here for Sea of Thieves, so much fun.
Sea Of Thieves has amazing ocean effects. The fog sometimes also is very atmospheric with how it seems to occlude sounds etc.
Same, it’s a lot of fun with friends. They also added peaceful servers where you can’t PvP a while back so you can fish in peace.
Fair warning though: This game needs to be played with friends, it can be tedious with randoms that barely communicate and disconnect whenever they feel like it.
Ooh I didn’t know about the peaceful servers. Might have to revisit that soon :)
They HEAVILY reduce the amount of rewards you get though, so if you actually want gold then it’s not worth playing compared to PvP servers.
But if you don’t want the hassle of dealing with other players and still want full rewards, you could do all your questing over in that volcanic biome on the map.
At least back when I played that was the relatively safest area for me.
Dave the Diver!
Dave the Diver has a very good early game, but eventually the grind just became needlessly tedious in my opinion. I liked going down and getting the fish etc. but the grind in mid to late game is just very time-skip heavy
Subnautica
I’ve played Subnautica so much that it’s no longer a challenge, even on hardcore. I installed this mod (Deathrun Remade) to increase the difficulty and had the most fun I’ve had in a while
I’ll look into this! I also love Subnautica
deleted by creator
From the Depths — it’s mind-meltingly complex, graphics are mid, and takes a few liberties with physics, but it lets you build your own warships Minecraft-style, including custom cannons, missiles, and air defense.
not a single mention of Dave the diver! on sale now too, and even better on istherenlanydeal
Breakwaters Crystal Tides. I’ve never played it but the water sim looks really good.
Also Flotsam and Raft
I like Anno 2070, a game which takes place in a world where the sea levels have risen to a barely-sustainable level. But it’s okay, because you can repopulate with the power of solarpunk machinery!
Not the best to any degree but just wanted to shout out the Pimps at Sea mod for Halo MCC that adds boats
From the creators of Cold Waters you have Sea Power, I like it a lot but it is more about strategy fighting with missiles and stuff from the Cold War rather than really enjoying sea.
Ultimate admiral dreadnoughts and War on the sea are also cool options for naval warfare.
Ships at Sea for normal modern sea stuff (fishing, cargo etc).
Naval action for slow wooden ships in the Bahamas.
But the best pirate game still is Assassin’s Creed Black Flag. You can mod it a little and find good shaders to have it look a bit better on today’s hardware.
(I often play Assassin’s Creed Rogue on the Steam deck as it is the small successor of black flag and looks very nice on this screen size)
Really appreciate the effort you put in your reply :) Thanks, lots to look at!
Good luck playing Black Flag unless you pirate it. Ubisoft fucking broke it with their shitty app. If will still work if you’ve previously installed and launched it, but if you’re a first time player, the launcher will prompt you to log in to you Ubisoft account, and then just never run.
Really? Ah shit, I have it legit on steam so it should use ubi launcher but I haven’t started it in a while.
I haven’t seen this prior to now. The idea of a nice age-of-sail combat game sounds interesting, but…man, looking at the Steam description there has some surprises:
That is an appallingly low Steam rating.
It looks like the split is between players who think that the game is too-slow-paced and those who are fine with that, so I could see someone who wants a slow game being into it.
Jesus Christ, the DLC prices. They’re selling each additional ship for ~$50? Like, the game with all ships is ~$700? I mean, I know that DCS World and Il-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Stalingrad use that model, but I can’t imagine that the ships function as differently from ship-to-ship as the combat aircraft in those games, bring as much additional gameplay.
It’s the Star Citizen model. Players should be happy they are not paying $400 for a concept art piece of a ship.
Yep, I don’t know what happened with the reviews lately. I know they did something with the servers, maybe with the PVP server so that might have made all those players angry.
I don’t have any DLC ships, except maybe for some gifted ones and I only play solo pirate/merchant on the PVE server and don’t engage too much with the community.
It is a very slow game, combats takes ages as well as trade runs. But that is what I like in those games, I just relax sailing and trying to demast some merchants. Maybe if I was participating with the community (port raiding for your nation etc) I would be angry too.
Is Black Flag good to play if you don’t like or follow the over arching story of Assassins Creed?
I felt like it kind of pulled me out of other games in the series
It is, but you have to progress a little in the AC story (or download a save somewhere) and then only play the naval gameplay.
Although it is nice to be able to walk on a small patch of sand looking for a treasure or going to a city. It is an AC after all so foot and parkour gameplay is good. It offers a nice change of pace from being on your ship. Unlike the – Ahem – quadruple A Skull & Bones…