What is the best Sea based game out there in your opinion?
What is the best Sea based game out there in your opinion?
I'm talking about things like:
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 Odyssey (Triremes and heaving seas) Just Cause 3 (Sparkling blue mediterranean seas) Sea of Thieves (Monsters and pirates) Sailwind (Gentle seas and actual sailing mechanics) Silent Depth 2 Pacific (Sneaky WW2 subs) Cold Waters (Sneaky modern subs) Uboat (Beautiful WW2 seas, rare shooting opportunities) Subnautica (Thalassophobia and crafting)
I've also noticed that Ships at Sea has just gone on sale. If you've played it recently was it any good?
I also need to add Fluffy Sailors which I bought today. So cute and so much fun :)
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
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Dredge is pretty fun and different!
Either Subnautica or AC Black Flag. Odyssey's water gameplay sucks balls compared to Black Flag.
Alternatively, Raft is quite nice
I really wanted to like Raft, but the game just felt kind of shallow and on-rails in actual gameplay compared to Subnautica.
Raft only truly shines when you play it with friends. Otherwise it gets old real fast. But with a crew of 3-4 chaotic people on board it's a ton of fun!
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 is really cool if you are looking for something a bit more casual, but with decent narrative and very strong world-building.
Dredge was one of the most compelling games I have ever played and I have been gaming since 1980.
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.
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
I haven't played it, but there's a game called Salt 2 that I've been interested in for a while.
The steam page says it's basically an infinite ocean with different islands and such. It sounds like it might be procedurally generated, but you can customize your ship and it's basically your mobile base and all.
Ooh that looks really interesting. Feels a bit like a single player Sea of Thieves maybe? Also 50% off right now on Steam... nice.
Probably will get some groans but World of Warships is actually modeled very nicely. And yeah its a free to play monetized game, but it is miles ahead of war thunder in terms of actually having fun and playing the game at high FPS and great quality even with a potato computer.
The engine has some cool tricks that really makes it shine with water spraying and sloshing onto your vessel.
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!
Pretty stoked for Bannerlord’s next expansion, War Sails.
Wow that's exciting! Huge fan of Bannerlord anyway. Wishlisted and looking forward to June :)
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!
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...
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:
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That is an appallingly low Steam rating.
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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.
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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.
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.
The developer is a cash hungry idiot, with no intention to ever listen to the community.
The community is great, battles intense, and the skill ceiling sky high. Sailing mechanisms second to none.
There's a lot more ships than the DLC ships. But yes, it's almost inevitable you will end up buying a couple of them, because the DLCs let you spawn a ship for free every day.
I stopped playing when the Dev decided to split the already low-populated PvP server into two separate instances, which is currently being reversed (to noones surprise).
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.
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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 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
I read this as "Sea Bass game" at first.
Honestly, I don't know.
Abzu? Dave the diver, maybe? Dredge?
Or, this might be a might more out of left field or maybe completely stupid and not at all what you had in mind, but what about coral island? You don't get to experience the water surface except when fishing or doing other stuff on the shore. But you get to do stuff on the bottom and there's mermaids and stuff.
Stardew valley with a tropical island vibe. So definitely fun and immersive. Definitely more adjacent than something like sea of thieves or black flag or subnautica, but I feel like it fits better than just cause 3, imo
Ooh Coral Island sounds interesting... Wishlisted! Thanks :)
Glad to hear it :D
Definitely not the best, but still worth a mention is "Stormworks: Build and rescue". Basically a Lego like "build a ship/plane and do missions on the oceans" game - missions nowadays are also including far more than rescue.
Breakwaters Crystal Tides. I’ve never played it but the water sim looks really good.
Also Flotsam and Raft
I had a lot of fun with Blackwake when it first came out, haven't played recently though.
Free on steam https://store.steampowered.com/app/420290/Blackwake/
That game was the best!
