UBOAT
UBOAT is a simulator of a submarine from WWII era, yet different than all you have seen so far. It is a survival sandbox with crew management mechanics while its primary theme is life of German sailors. The boat is their home, but it can become their grave at any time. In UBOAT you control the crew in order to control the boat. You look after their physical and mental health, because if the sailors are hungry, tired and their spirit is low, there’s no chance of winning even a skirmish. The extensive damage system is a foundation of the game's survival elements. Unprecedented situations are bound to happen as the effect of received damage, testing player's creativity and ability to stay calm. You can try to save the whole crew or leave someone behind, to save the others. While your ship travels through the open seas, you will often find yourself being on your own. Use your management skills to spend resources taken on the trip optimally and in special cases try to recover them on the sea, by asking your allies for the help… or by looting wreckages of enemy ships.
Game Discussion
Steam User 256
I was going to wait until after the games is fully released next week before writing a review but the game won't be changing drastically before then so thought I may as well do it now.
Uboat is the absolute definitive ww2 submarine simulator covering mainly the battle of the Atlantic and a few surrounding areas. I first purchased Uboat way back in 2019 when it was branded as a ww2 submarine survival game with some sim elements. Uboats early access journey has been long and after all the updates it has had it is now a fully fledged simulation with all the bells and whistles.
Most of the settings are configurable as well so if your not a fan of realism or challenge then you can play the game the way that suits you. You can even switch of crew management if you don't enjoy that aspect.
For some context, I am a self confessed submarine fanatic and have played every single sub game ever released going way back to the early 80's as a small boy playing hunter killer on the old spectrum 48k computer. There have been many since then including Silent service series, Aces of the deep, 688 attack sub, the Silent Hunter series plus all the other more arcady ones.
The Silent Hunter series (not the disaster that was SH5) was for me the benchmark going all the way back to the mid 90's when the first one came out. Silent Hunter 3 and 4 (heavy modding is required) have been my go to sub sims for most the the last 2 decades.
Uboat in its current form blows all of those games out the water on every level, be it graphics, sound, atmosphere, realism etc
It includes 5 Uboats in the base game with other subs hopefully coming in dlc. The early patrols will have you operating under prize rules, investigating ships etc. It will then progress to the massive convoy battles where you will encounter convoys with 60+ ships. When you first encounter a large convoy you will immediately be brought back to the classic war movie das boat, there are plenty of nods in that famous movie's direction which I personally love at its probably my favourite war movie ever.
The dlc and modding potential with Uboat is huge.
Other highlights include,
The most realistic tdc ever programmed for a computer game.
Sounds of ships sinking on hydrohones
Crew management, unlike with the Silent Hunter games you never feel like you are alone on a sub anymore
Plenty of historical campaigns to work though including optional side missions.
Possibility to affect research prioroties
Wolfpacks
Contact reports from bdu and other subs
Full uboats interior where you can walk around
best ever graphics for a sub sim
career progression, medals etc
Random crew and equipment breakdown events
Excellent modding support, could we see a gwx type megamod in the future? Don't see why not.
Very receptive developers who are willing to listen and implement ideas they hear from players
Like with all games though, there is always room for improvement. There is not a massive amount of ship types with the base game so would be great to see more variations with merchants and other warships, I would even happily pay for these as I know there is a lot of work that goes indeed to making these.
They have also just implemented a blue print system for sub upgrades which could use some more work to iron out some rough edges.
The point system which is used to buy/upgrade things is on the easy side so there needs to be more balancing work done on that as well.
Overall all though I've been having a blast playing Uboat and I would recommend this to anyone who has even a remote interest in what it must have been like to spend weeks out at sea on these things.
Going to give Uboat a solid 8 out of 10 with hopefully good post release support and dlc pushing it up to 10 out of 10.
Steam User 95
It's a very enjoyable game. In my opinion, it's the definitive submarine game on the market right now.
If you like to let games run while you work, this is one of the best ones to do that with. Set your course, set speed to real time or near real time (I think x12 is the closest to "near real time"), and watch your sub head for the English Channel or allied seas while you perform your duties.
The difficulty can be anywhere between a walk in the park, to realistic. I prefer the middle ground; a nice challenge that requires some focus and micro-management, but with some leeway to make a string of good kills.
The game does a good job at attempting to capture the atmosphere of a U-Boat submarine, but I feel it misses the mark just a bit. According to different sources, the average U-Boat crew size was approximately 25 - 31 Kriegsmariners, which I feel isn't accurately portrayed in the game. In numbers in a journal it might be, and there are 20 bunk slots, but there is no gathering of crew to eat (some eat individually), you don't see doctor check-ups, there's no morning, noon, or night briefs or meetings, command stand-ups, squad / NCO meetings, no auxiliary crew quarters (doctors, intelligence, SS), and the layout of the sub is very simplified. This of course makes play easier and simplified, and it really isn't all that bad, but I for one would enjoy an in-depth representation of life as a U-Boat Kriegsmarine. If you've watched movies like Das Boot, The Enemy Below, and (to an extent), K-19 The Widowmaker, you'll know what I mean.
I'm not saying you should have to micro or be able to interact with every single member of the crew either, but just to have them, their quarters, and their daily ups and downs visibly represented would be nice. I would also enjoy a wider array of random events at sea. I think mods will take care of this eventually, and in fact there are dev-logs to show they are actively working on some of the things I mention. Also, this is a purely subjective tangent, and I don't mean for this to dissuade you from the game one bit.
Speaking of mods, there are a number of reliably updated additions in the Steam Workshop that enhance the atmosphere and submarine functionality quite nicely. I must name-drop U-Boat Expanded (UBE); my god what an amazing augmentation. There's also radio mods that I particularly enjoy as well.
As far as development goes, the updates to the game are very good. From what it was in the beginning to what it is now is so vast that it's impossible to put into this review. The work is well done, and you can tell that the developers are putting their best foot forward with this game.
I would recommend this game to anybody looking for a well thought-out 1940's sub-nautical experience. It is *fantastically* detailed, especially with period ships, planes, weaponry, and equipment. Your experience and mileage may vary, I give no guarantees, but I can say without doubt that if you have a modicum of patience and interest in the Wolf Packs and the Battle for the Atlantic of WWII, you'll be pleasantly taken in by this game.
Steam User 382
Been playing all major ww2 sub games since wolfpack on DOS back in the day.
This game has allmost everything i want from a ww2 subsim, And some stuff im not to much of a fan of, like:
-Sailor management gets very tedious very fast. Especially on the type IIa boat where fuel management is critical.
i run 2 shifts, and having to assign 2 sailors to engines every 12 hours during transitions kills the flow of the game imo. Timecompress for 12 hours, then pause when shifts change, assign sailors, timecompress for 12 hours, repeat.
-Lack of automation
I really wish they would add the ability to make me able to automate actions more, So i dont have to micromanage as much.
Like:
-Keeping sailors on critical stations like engines, and not the officer at all times.
-Setting red lights at dusk
-White light at dawn
-Turning on Blue light enables silent running and then turn off gyro and eletrical diveplanes.
-Turning on compressors after surfacing after a manual set depth dive
ect.
Then there are actions i would like to not have automated, like alarms
-Slots in the storage hold
IMO the storage in the cargoholds should only be limited by weight and/or a grid rather than a few single slots.
Steam User 118
This is some serious next level strategy, easy to play (kind of) difficult to master...but when you start getting good what a dopamine rush it is when you sink that first destroyer.
good stuff
Steam User 63
As an old SH3 GWX player, I can say that today the game is in a good place.
5 years ago, it was The Sims on a boat. Today, I can hunt again with direct access to the TDC, map drawing tools, hydrophone TMA, control over map update realism settings. It has everything I loved about SH3/4 and it adds a RPG crew management element that doesn't make you feel lonely on an empty sub.
You can board ships, interact with sailors in lifeboats, wide-array of missions, a campaign element. ...and on top of all this, it's mod friendly. The game is a triumph for the subsim community!
Steam User 71
After completing the campaign and unlocking every achievement, I can say that this game is really fun for casuals but annoying for hardcore people or just anyone trying to get the achievements.
The first 2-3 years of the campaign were really manageable and relaxed, except for the norwegian campaign which it felt really pressured and I did on the nick of time (the difficulty on the escort missions are really punishing too, wanting you to destroy +4 destroyers/corvettes numerous times throughout one single escort mission).
On the last part of the campaign where the enemies start having better radar and hydrophone, the amount of scripted air raids and aircraft spottings was extremely infuriating. You sail? Air raid. You resurface? Aircraft. You submerge and resurface again? Aircraft. You submerge and wait god knows how much? Aircraft again. It feels extremely scripted and makes a normal patrol feel endless.
It also feels exagerated having a sailor bleed out because my submarine is going at 2 knots and scrapping the sea bed...
Aside from all that, a couple of persistent glitches/bugs stood with me around the last 2 years of the campaign.
- GRT not resetting after a patrol (I literally ended the campaign with it saying 1.3 million tonnage).
- Persistent "damage" that doesn't fix when arriving at a port.
- Neglected interiors after going at 15000x speed... numerous times (doesn't go away).
- Bugged port arrival/exiting automatic waypoints. (The most common is the port close to Italy). If you don't pay attention you might as well ram against a shore.
Overall, the game is fun and has a lot of mechanics that you'll learn along the way. In my case, the campaign was so long that I had to take several breaks between months to finish it, so you have a lot to do. If you enjoy submarines, you might want to try it. If you like realism/difficulty, oh boy you're in for a ride.
Steam User 99
* do training missions in u-boat
* finish and think I'm ready
* start my 1st patrol "can't be that bad:
* torp a freighter and frigate
* get cornered and have to dive
* crashdive to 80 meters
*didn't check the depth sounder, bottom was at 50 meters
* hit bottom and get depth charged twice
* start patching leaks thru it all
* somehow survive and frigates fuck off
* blow ballast and surface
* crew are now permanently scarred and have a fear of the ocean