Best Naval Real-Time Games on PC

Her Majesty’s Ship

First, this game is not FTL on wooden ships. This game is a real-time management/strategy game with no tactical pause. The game is very similar to FTL but has a more MACRO approach to crew management then the Micro approach that FTL had.

I really enjoy this game and it is a great game. My game preferences run towards turn-based and tactical pause games. I really do not like RTS games whatsoever.

Although this game is a real-time strategy game at its core, it is very manageable and approachable. This game has captivated me.

– Real player with 64.0 hrs in game

Read More: Best Naval Management Games.

Her Majesty’s Ship - Troubled Waters but hopefully smoother sailing on the horizon

I am recommending this title mainly because I really like the idea behind it - managing a ship of the Royal Navy in detailed fashion - but have reservations in doing so.

The game is all too brief at this point and I have noted that other players have requested an endless mode, a correction I heartily endorse and support.

Combat is rather too simplistic and does seem dependent upon RNG factors, outside of already having a vessel well-stocked with powder and eventually a complement of marines.

– Real player with 38.4 hrs in game

Her Majesty's Ship on Steam

Pirates of the Polygon Sea

Pirates of the Polygon Sea is a pirate action adventure game. You play as a pirate vying to take control of the Mythic Isles. In doing so you will build your very own port town, trade with neighboring islands, hunt for lost pleasure and attack merchant ships and opposing pirates.

The first decision that the player makes is arguably the most important of the game. You are given the choice of four pirates to play as:

Blackwood is given the Dhow Warship to start with. He is known for his presence and tactical mastery as a former navy admiral. To select him is to play with a mindset of bringing civilization to the savage land.

– Real player with 14.5 hrs in game

Read More: Best Naval Adventure Games.

Lacks any sort of uniqueness or depth to be enjoyable. There is only few building options for your colony, no leveling of character, no upgrades for your ship other than buying higher tier ship or ship of different class (3 ship classes, 5 ships each, none really unique), combat is simple as you only have one cannon ball type to shoot with in addition to 1 special weapon for each ship class.

Only 1 winning condition (get enough prestige and money to buy max title for yourself) and, as far as I can tell, you can’t destroy your enemies completely (each of my opponents had buildings I could not shoot. I reduced each to like 1 building and they were able to rebuild).

– Real player with 11.2 hrs in game

Pirates of the Polygon Sea on Steam

Sea Power : Naval Combat in the Missile Age

After hostilities have broken out in Central Europe, the race is on as a pressured US Navy escort force battle off Soviet bomber and submarine attacks on a perilous quest to reinforce NATO defenders in Europe. Meanwhile, in the Persian Gulf, the conflict between Iran and Iraq risks escalating into a larger confrontation between superpowers as both sides indiscriminately attack neutral merchant shipping. And in the Norwegian Sea, an outnumbered Soviet surface force challenges the might of a massive US Navy amphibious force bound for occupied Norway…

Brought to you by the lead designer of Cold Waters, Sea Power lets you control NATO and Warsaw Pact forces in a modern naval conflict. Whether it’s gunning it out with Boghammars in a surface duel, fighting off aerial attackers armed with long-range missiles, or hunting for enemy submarines with aircraft and surface ships, advanced weaponry and sensors are at your disposal. Can you successfully hide your forces while detecting and tracking theirs? It is up to you to play an advanced game of cat and mouse on the high seas, to seize the initiative and attack with the advantage of surprise on your side. And at all times, you have to observe rules of engagement and take care not to cause an unnecessary incident that could lead to escalation. After all, you cannot really be sure just who that radar contact at 30.000 feet is, can you?

Features List

Cold war era between the ’60s and ’80s
Theatres including North Atlantic, Persian Gulf, Gulf of Tonkin and Mediterranean Area
Dynamic campaign - theatre scale
Historical and fictional single scenarios
Dynamic time of day and weather per engagement
Dynamic soundtrack
Realtime combat
Advanced flight and ship physics
Scalable realism such as weapons malfunctions, advanced sensor modeling
Pausable real-time, time compression
Full user scenario editor and quick mission builder
Advanced in-game tutorial
Save games everywhere/every time
Detailed and accurate 3D graphics
Over 50 original ships and more than 30 original aircraft
Land facilities and real-world terrain
Post-battle replay

Read More: Best Naval Real Time Tactics Games.

Sea Power : Naval Combat in the Missile Age on Steam

Victory At Sea Pacific

Dev activity

They’re quite active. They reply promptly to direct contact on the Discord and are equally ready to implement suggestions into the game. Most notably when it comes to expanding modding support. Some reviews claim the game is dead or the devs have run off so the patch history follows.

9-14-2018 Public release, 9-19-2018 Patch 1.0.4, 9-20-2018 Patch 1.0.5, 9-25-2018 Patch 1.0.6, 9-28-2018 Patch 1.0.7, 10-5-2018 Patch 1.1, 10-11-2018 Patch 1.1.1, 10-18-2018 Patch 1.1.2, 10-26-2018 Patch 1.1.3, 10-30-2018 Patch 1.1.4, 11-8-2018 Patch 1.1.5, 11-23-2018 Patch 1.2 (introduced modding), 11-26-2018 Patch 1.2.0p2, 11-27-2018 Patch 1.2.0p3, 12-17-2018 Patch 1.2.1, 12-20-2018 Patch 1.2.1p3, 12-21-2018 Patch 1.2.1p4, 1-9-2019 Patch 1.2.2, 1-11-2019 Patch 1.2.2p1, 1-23-2019 Patch 1.2.3, 3-4-2019 Patch 1.3.1 Royal Navy added, 4-2-2019 Patch 1.4 Custom battles, 6-19-2019 Patch 1.5 Minor factions, 10-30-2019 Patch 1.6, 11-4-2019 Patch 1.6.1, 11-13-2019 Patch 1.6.2, 2-6-2020 Patch 1.7, 2-7-2020 Patch 1.7.0p1, 2-26-2020 Patch 1.7.1

– Real player with 181.7 hrs in game

As someone who really want’s to like this game, and I truly do want to like it, I’m sorry to say that I can’t really recommend this game in it’s current state. The gameplay is fine and can be fun, specifically when your right up in the action having the ship maneuver to avoid torpedoes and air attacks, and launching submarine attacks on convoys and task forces.

But while the core gameplay is really solid, the fact that it is so filled with bugs and glitches makes it really difficult to enjoy what’s there. Ships can just disappear from a taskforce, even though it is possible to find their models and still click and control them manually. I’ve had a case where I lost an entire taskforce of submarines to limbo because of a glitch despite the fact I was able to use said submarines to sink a flotilla’s worth of destroyers. I’ve had a similar case where I lost three battleships to limbo when I tried to control them manually.

– Real player with 133.5 hrs in game

Victory At Sea Pacific on Steam

Fleet Command

I really, REALLY want this game. Or what this game should be. I have been trying to find a pseudo-simulator for grand scale battles in naval warfare, and this is it. Sadly, I can’t recommend it for anyone. Too many things don’t work well. It’s hard to get working. It’s no longer supported by the developer. And even once you get it working, little things break in gameplay that make it hard to enjoy. At some point, subs broke completely; now they go on autopilot and refuse to engage or come to the surface (yes, I’m aware of the setting that supposedly fixes this; it doesn’t work for me). Missiles disappear on launch from destroyers or cruisers. Airplanes disappear on launch from carriers. It makes play kinda worthless.

– Real player with 147.1 hrs in game

Alarm chimes inside USS Nimiz CIC, the Admiral puts down his drink in the dimly lit room and looks at the enlistedmen seated at their stations and locks eyes with one, sitting before the radar as he speaks

“Incoming airborne contacts from the north-west, speed matching Backfire Bombers.”

“Lets get those F-14s off picket duties and have them vector an incept course with the Backfires, lets show em these Tomcats have claws and they don’t mess around.”

Another sailor, this one wearing a headset calls

– Real player with 140.2 hrs in game

Fleet Command on Steam

Submarine Titans

Submarine Titans was among the Age of Empires RTS era, but capitalized on an elaborate, nearly never ending Tech/Research Tree for each race. This encourages you to either focus heavily on research and tech development, or choose a priority in research. In the Research and Tech areas, this is most equivilent to Warzone 2100. Although ST only has 3 races, each race is very unique to each other in style of gameplay, reflecting the Offense,Defense, and Economic player styles. The responsiveness is sluggish sometimes, and some commands take some patience sometimes, but its worth it! Submarine Titans is really just a great game, and worth spending some time into it.

– Real player with 262.7 hrs in game

fantastic game from back in the day. still hangs well, doesnt feel dated. still solid solid graphics and sound.

once you get the hang of it, winning through the solo battles is a fairly easy mostly mellow resource aquisition and military conquest romp. if you gain proper control early, you can fool around for an hour or two and completely overwhelm the entire board, capturing enemy stuff instead of blowing it up, mining all the resources and overbuilding bases just for fun.

or you can try to build up fast, plow through the enemy quickly, and set a speed record for yourself.

– Real player with 158.3 hrs in game

Submarine Titans on Steam

Sub Command

Not so much a game as a second job: you can let the auto-crew do much for you but let’s face facts: the appeal of this game is how much it demands from you. Want to work out the firing solution for the 89cm ADCAP torpedo manually? Of course you do, this game was written for you.

The plotline (nasty Russians go to war with the USA for some reason) is not really developed - I’m halfway through the US campaign - BUT the opportunity to play the campaign from the Russians' perspective is a very welcome, plus you have to re-learn the entire control system, this time using the metric system.

– Real player with 36.1 hrs in game

This is the sequel to Jane’s 688(i) Hunter/Killer but now under the flag of Sonarlysts. Most features have already been mentioned in my review of 688(i) so I will try to tell only the difference between these two:

Higher resolution and better graphics
3 plattforms to operate (688(i), Seawolf, Akula)
Single missions and campaigns which can be played as US or russian.
Use your voice to command your ship completely (navigation, firing at a certain contact etc.)

The most important part feature, which came afterwards for Sub Command, is the big SCX mod:

– Real player with 31.8 hrs in game

Sub Command on Steam

Wargame: Red Dragon