For the good of the country, you have been asked - ordered, perhaps - to remain indoors wherever possible. If you can work from home, do so. Get yourself enough food to not need to go to the shops for a while (but don't be a dick and horde things you don't need), and settle in for what might be a long time. Keep your spirits up and help your neighbours, because we're in this together. Also, you're underwater in a metal coffin, dodging depth charges and naval convoys in the middle of the Atlantic. Good luck.
As I write this, the UK lockdown is easing (Wrongly? Rightly? 2021 will tell us, I'm sure), but the whole experience does put some perspective on the incredible lengths people will go to - must go to - in times of war. You know, they're being asked to change their lives, you're being told to stay on the sofa. It doesn't compare.
One of those insane feats is to willingly serve in a submarine crew, an experience faithfully recreated in Silent Hunter III, a Second World War submarine simulator. You're good with tight spaces, aren't you?
Fun Times
A short cinematic introduction reveals that we're German. It was everyone speaking in German that gave that away. No subtitles or translations to know what was said, though, but I'd imagine it was all kinds of submarine lingo. It was all the submarines that gave that away.
In all seriousness, Silent Hunter III starts off with clear indications of whereabouts you are in history, with that typewriter font and the sepia-toned imagery of the seas. It's war.
Not knowing how submarines work, aside from the underwater bit, I head into the tutorial and am immediately thrust in front of an entire manual of text. Yikes. It's not going to be a walk in the park, this one.
I have absolutely no idea how Silent Hunter III plays at this point. I'm going in blind, and I'm struck by my first view. This is the command room, full of gauges, indicators, and crew to order around. You can't walk around, but you can look everywhere. It's a bit awkward to do so, and not terribly realistic, but it sure is immersive. Do I have to navigate the entire game from inside this room?
Thankfully, after clicking a few buttons to learn on the job, I find the free camera and our objectives. We're to practice navigating, an essential skill for the times when we won't be on the surface of the seas, scanning the horizon with massive binoculars.
You can zip into a bunch of different rooms on the sub to tinker with things directly, or you can ask your crew to perform actions associated with their skillset. The engineer keeps an eye on the engines and can be told to get us moving, the navigator can plot us a course for him to follow, and so on.
You're still doing the work yourself, but at least there is a hint of delegating duties and some kind of chain of command.
All I need to do on this mission is to get moving, so this attack map isn't useful to me, but it does serve one purpose: to scare me. That's a lot of indicators. If I ever get into a fight - 'when', let's just admit that now - I'm going to have to know what each of these does. Even if I just tell someone to launch torpedoes, I'm going to need to know exactly how torpedoes work, and what submarines are capable of in terms of manoeuvrability.
This is going to be much tougher than I thought.
The radio operator informs me of a message, but I don't know what that message was. Was it that we cleared our first objective? This is a slow game. I'm not ready for this amount of realism. Let's see what we're meant to be navigating through.
Oooh, that's a big map. It even bothers to map the Channel Islands, usually completely ignored by video game depictions of Europe, in any context. We're all the way over in Denmark, though, just trying to get used to our sub.
Eventually, we tick off a few more objectives, but alarmingly I appear to have skipped over one. Maybe the channel is considerably longer than I thought. It's that or I've missed a hidden checkpoint or something, and I don't particularly want to turn this thing around if I don't have to.
Hoping that moving further out to sea is the answer, I set a course and carry on.
Frustration
Oh. We're scraping along the seafloor. And nobody gave me any warning? Ok, well, that's enough for me. I get the gist of navigation. The details can wait. The campaign can't start off that demanding, can it?
Our papers are in and the first mission is simple. Survey sector AF87 for 24 hours. Realism rating of 29%. Not bad. I'm definitely not going to change that, given that I've not even finished the first tutorial, technically, but it's nice to have. I dread to think what 100% is like.
AF87 is miles away. Quite a few, in fact, so I ask the navigator to plot a course, then do his job for him and plot a course. The details don't matter, just get me to closer to France.
Oh good Lord, the details do matter! I've just ploughed into the harbour walls. What will my superiors think? What an utter idiot. Let's just exit and try again.
A new/fixed submarine and a second launch is cheered off with, I assume, as much enthusiasm as the first. I didn't even know we started in a harbour. Clearly, that's my fault, being the captain and all. This time I'll get it right.
In fact, this time is a different time. We've been asked to patrol a different sector. Still just as far away, but this is a new mission. I've never seen this sort of thing before. We're not just simulating a submarine here, but the entire organization of our naval forces. I should have bumped the realism down a notch.
Finally out of the harbour, I really start to notice how leisurely Silent Hunter III moves. It moves in realtime, by default. You know, because it's a simulator. Boats aren't the speedest of things, but, thankfully, there is a time dilator to speed up and slow down events, and not just by a factor of 2 or 4, but all the way up to 256, 512, and 1024 times realtime.
Right up until a single event happens, at which point it slams back into realtime to let you deal with the situation. Often, it's a case of a ship being seen in the distance. Is it friendly? Yeah. Well, don't drive into it then. Were we going to drive into it? No? Don't pull me out of lightspeed to tell me about it.
While in and around the harbour, speeding through time turned a slow game into a stop/start game. I know life at sea has moments of downtime and slow progress, but this was a little too slow for my tastes. I wanted some action - even if I was woefully unprepared to deal with it.
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| What do you mean 'not enough crew'? |
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| I have a crew management menu?! |
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| We go underwater on batteries?! |
We're not even out onto the open seas and already I'm in over my head - because I dared to go underwater before learning what it means to go diving. We need batteries and oxygen and stuff down here. And eventually, should I ever get competent enough, I'd have to keep an eye on the buildup of Carbon Dioxide levels so that we don't all suffocate.
Silent Hunter III isn't messing around, is it?
Further Fun Times
It's not much to look at, but as the sun sets and the lighting changes, the peace of the open water calms me down a little. Fresh air fills the crews' lungs, the batteries are given a rest and are recharged, and the target is in sight. A long way away, for sure, but at least I don't have any harbour walls in the way.
Time passes, the crew continues to be mismanaged on account of me knowing literally nothing about how to effectively manage them, and we reach our designated search zone and start our patrol. Will it be eventful? Off the coast of England at the start of the Second World War? I don't know enough about history to know that.
The navigator, if I recall, has a bunch of search patterns that we can plot out and follow. It's a bit out of our sector, but it'll at least look like we were being useful.
Sadly, almost immediately, it feels like, the batteries run out of juice, and the engine packs in, and we're forced to surface in the middle of the night.
Further Frustrations
What is going on with my crew? Do I have to manage their sleeping patterns? Do I have to juggle them between engines? How do I survive underwater for ages? Isn't that the whole point of submarines? To go underwater for extended periods? Does mine have a leak or something?
All of these questions are no doubt answered by actually finishing the tutorial and understanding everything that's going on, but I don't have the patience for that - though, that isn't to say I won't ever have the patience. I do want to see some action. Silent Hunter III isn't called Silent Hunter for nothing. I'm expecting to be able to sneak up to a ship and blow it out of the water. Aren't we all coming into this game for that exact reason?
We've not done much, but have technically met the mission objectives, and can turn back to head home - except that my crew cannot comply with my orders. There's not a mutiny, is there? Why can't you comply? What's broken?
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| There's never enough crew in the bloody engine compartment. Is that a plane? |
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| Depth charges? It was a plane, then. Damn. |
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| So are you just refusing to move, or what? |
Spotted and surrounded by depth charges, our second mission doesn't end well. To be fair, I didn't have anyone die, but I am stranded in the sea with no way to move, and no idea how to correct that. My crew don't want to do anything. I don't know what to do other than call it a day and come back with some useful knowledge.
Final Word
But I want to. At the very least, I want to see Silent Hunter III in action somehow. I want to experience the tense thrills of ghosting through a convoy and spying on the enemy, even if we're playing as the Germans. If that means via YouTube, so be it.
I hope it doesn't mean that, though. The 1001 write up points out that you ought to play Silent Hunter III with a mod that adds even more depth, no pun intended, to the game. If it makes it more accessible too, sign me up.
I went into this game thinking it was the highlight of an action series centred on the seas. I had no idea it was a simulator and clearly wasn't prepared for such a thing. Even in an unmodded state, it is a demanding piece of software depicting a high-pressure environment. Another unintended pun.
Would I call this some kind of hidden gem? Probably not. Unexpected treasure? That's probably pushing things too, but it is a welcome surprise, to be sure. Now I know of a submarine simulator, should I ever want to not simulate planes, trains, or automobiles.
Is it going to be a game for everyone? Nope. But for those who are interested in the subject, it's this or Captain Sonar, and lockdown isn't letting that hit the table very often, is it?
Fun Facts
You can, if you're determined, sail to South Africa or the Pacific, but you won't see anything out there. You'll see harbours all the way over in New York and Florida, though, if your travels take you that far.
Silent Hunter III, developed by Ubisoft Bucharest, first released in 2005.
Version played: PC, 2005.