By Chris Picone, 18 August 2024

I grew up with Silent Hunter, which was (surprisingly, given my delicate age) one of my favourite games growing up, and a game which has left deep memories that are still fresh in my mind even a couple of decades on.  So when I saw Silent Depth 2 - and under the Microprose banner, no less! - I jumped all over it.  Which brings me to the one point I really want to drive home:  Despite appearances, Silent Depth 2 is not a spiritual successor to Silent Hunter.  It's important to know what to expect and to go in with an open mind.

While the developers have described Silent Depth 2 as a "sim-lite,"  I notice many reviews on Steam are calling it an arcade game.  I can see where they're coming from, and honestly the gameplay's kinda tricky to describe, but I think the devs have it right with sim-lite.  Parts of the game are played on the map - click where you want and off you go. At some stage you'll bump into some enemy and can choose to engage. The next part of the game's a cat-and-mouse played on the radar; you can see radar blips of enemy ships but of course they can't see you.  So your first job is to try to cut an intercept course. Once they're in range it gets trickier because you then need to sight the enemy via periscope, issue commands to steer the ship so that your front or rear is facing (to line up the torpedo tubes), then it's bombs away and with any luck you'll strike the enemy down.  Once hit, the enemy will be aware of your presence and enemy destroyers will start looking for you.  You need to either fight back or run away as you see fit, but quickly, as their depth charges will make short work of you.  The AI, combat, and scenarios are a little clunky at the moment, but it's important to note the game's still in very Early Access.  On that note, the game is very small in scope at the moment, although it's worth noting the road map which includes not only different patrol events including rescue and escort services, and even anti-air combat.

The verdict?  Silent Depth 2 is a very simplistic version of the old Silent Service / Silent Hunter genre of games that theoretically should make it easier to initiate new players, but potentially at the risk of excluding the grognards.  My experience was fairly clunky, but that's to be expected for this stage of development, and I look forward to seeing how the game will shape up over the next 12 months as it approaches 1.0

 Links:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2591010/Silent_Depth_2_Pacific/