UBoat Review (cato)
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.