UBOAT

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.

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.

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.

At first I stayed clear of this because the gaming community commonly referred to it as "The Sims - U-Boat Edition." Frankly, I was looking for more a sub sim with some... depth... and passed it by as a subsim with a gimmick that perhaps doesn't work well. But in spite of my initial misgivings and having fond memories of previous WWII subsims, I decided to take the plunge and try UBOAT.
I have to say it up front... I believe this is the best WWII sub sim since Silent Hunter 3.
Everything has a familiar feel to SH3, but with a fully modeled sub that you can walk bow to stern unhindered and interact with a multitude of stations, better graphical fidelity, decent audio, and good variety of mission types (Some not historical, but can be disabled if you aim for the monotony of "full real") in a "Dynamic Campaign." The customization options for difficulty are plentiful as well, ranging from highly automated "arcade-like" to hardcore sim which doesn't hold your hand and requires you to plot intercept courses, gather all information for torpedo firing solutions (which you can then input into a fully modeled, realistic, TDC), and manage any crises that can and will arise.
If I had one major complaint, I would levy it directly at the audio, which is a bit of a mixed bag. Thankfully, there are sound mods and full steam workshop integration. There are even mods which add many new ship types, both ally and enemy, to encounter in the world which can add a great deal of unpredictability.
The "Sims" aspect is present, but not as annoying to manage as I expected. Depending on how much micromanagement you wish to deal with, settings can be customized so that sailors and officers will, for the most part, go about their duties without your interference. However, if you want to get the best out of your crew, you can set specific schedules and tasks, assign specific sailors and officers to priority tasking, and even assign what priority level your crew should give to individual tasks on the boat. It can be either complex, or simple, your choice.
In addition, when combat starts and things begin to go wrong, you may see crew get hit and knocked out, ragdolling down, while your medic rushes over to help, carrying them to a bunk where they can be stabilized. An example of what can go wrong... I was on a patrol near Tobruk in poor weather and my watch crew were minimal because I thought the visibility was so poor, we'd never stumble across a warship. I was wrong. A corvette opened fire on us just after the watch sounded the alarm. I looked to the conning tower and was presented with the explosion of a cannon shell... which was close enough to one of the watchmen that it knocked him unconscious. The blast knocked him back, off the rear of the tower, bouncing off the deck, and into the water, where he drowned as I heard the calls for man overboard. I ordered the crash dive and we were able to get away safely, but lost two sailors in the process.
Another interesting example of what can happen: I recently intercepted a carrier group, at night in a light rain storm, and rushed at them on the surface at flank speed. The hope was to get into a good position, close enough to get hits on the fleet carrier with a full salvo. At great distance, I see star shells being fired to illuminate the area. I know they couldn't possibly have spotted me as I was still just over the horizon and could only see the tips of their masts. I then observe... explosions... jutting up over the horizon. It took me a moment to realize... another U-Boat had also intercepted the carrier group, and had scored at least two torpedo hits... and the destroyer escort was now hunting him. After diving, my sonarman confirmed this theory when he was able to identify the screws of an allied U-Boat... desperately trying to evade the destroyers.
Seeing things like this happen is something that sets UBOAT well apart from its predecessors. It can look and feel a little "janky" at times, but no more so than other sub sims on the market today or of yesteryear. It's a very well done sim, and if you are interested in the strategic, slower pace of submarine combat, it has a lot to offer.

At first i wanted to send British boats and their crew to the bottom of the ocean.
Turns out i like to run them down and order them to surrender the vessel because I am an honorable Captain.
I got a message one of my men had a daughter waiting for him at port, you bet your ass I promoted him and put him on a research mission deep inside friendly territory, so he can raise his child.
When Peters got killed i ordered as many Officers and crew onto the deck as i could, so we could shoot off a few rounds from the cannon and give him a proper send off...

Its more than boats.

Be me. Have thalassophobia. Attack a large convoy. Thread delicately through the escort screen to right in the middle of the convoy. Torpedo a 10,000 ton tanker! Dive prudently to 100 meters. Detection meter at 0%. Detection meter now at 100%. Every escort converges on my at once. Every escort drops depth charges. Ha! They are too shallow! I am going to escape! Dozen depth charges land right on my position. Everything is damaged. Hole in the starboard side. Flooding. Can’t control it. Sink to the sea floor at 150 meters. Pressure is too high to pump the water out. Radio officer plugging hole with his hands. Captain is incapable of controlling the situation. Depth charges exploding everywhere. Out of repair parts. Depth charges. Hole in the conning tower. Control room flooded. Radio officer seals himself in the aft torpedo compartment with 8 terrified survivors of a torpedoes freighter. Lights in the rest of the sub are out. Everyone drowns except the radio officer. Escorts move on. Can’t repair the damage but aft compartment is secure. No way to get off the bottom. Silence. There is no way to get out. Radio officer is hopelessly banging on control room hatch to end it all, but the hatch is broken and can’t be opened. Lights in rear compartment go out. Pitch black.

10/10, would watch waking nightmare play out again.

* 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