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?
Dredge is pretty fun and different!
Cold Waters
Best simulator ever. And then you find the mods.
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.
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
Ecco the Dolphin. (Genesis)
Sid Meier’s Pirates! (PC)
Subnautica (PC)
Uncharted Waters: New Horizons (SNES)
I would really like something that is a modern Uncharted Waters or Pirates! game. They are both very similar games, and both are also quite old.
Which sid meiers i play the og way back.
I just replayed Subnautica in VR. Such a great game.
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.
I read this as “Sea Bass game” at first.
Honestly, I don’t know.
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.
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.
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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
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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 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.
Odyssey is more recent but Black Flag definitely has better storms
Why the “Flag” get removed?
Woops, typo
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
