Cold Waters

I am slightly disappointed by the game. I have outlined below my dislikes for the game. There are still a lot of bugs with this GOG version, such as not being able to change your weapon load out while in port for a particular weapon TLAM. Not getting credit for sinking ships. Damage occurring to your sub out of no where. Pretty dumb for the designers to put the white lettering on the world map the same color, which makes it hard to read. Not given enough time to get to your mission area. It would have been nice to slow down the speed of the game. You can increase it, but not slow it. Can't zoom in close enough on the tactical map, which would help in evading torpedoes. Only 2 decoys given. Since this is a modern sub and not WW2 era subs, the periscope is worthless The sub finds contacts on its own. So I miss using that to locate targets. The enemy locates you way to easy. Even with keeping your distance and silent running they seem to know where you are. They should have provided tools to made it easier to identify to avoid detection. Would have been nice to go on a patrol like in Silent Hunter to sink targets of opportunity, instead of just completing missions. If you are just using a regular keyboard for controlling your sub, then the controls are not intuitive. Too many of the nav keys are to close together, making it easy in the heat of battle to hit the wrong key. Then suddenly your sub is surfacing. If you can get it on sale as I did, and you are a sub fan, it's worth messing around with, just don't expect an amazing experience. I was much happier back in the day with Red Storm Rising. Crazy all these decades later they can't improve, other than visually, on that experience.

I've owned this title for roughly two months now and have played through the single missions and campaigns three times. While there can be mission repeats, no mission truly plays the same way twice. This makes for nearly endless tactical situations where you can either plan your attack or see the need for snapshots depending on your ever-changing situation. As you learn your own playstyle and develop your style of attacks (because it's difficult to master this game quickly) you will learn to adapt, react and maintain your situational awareness while trying to remain as stealthy as possible in order to complete your missions and fight another day. I recently learned that a FREE DLC is coming to this game with a South China Sea campaign vs the PLAN (Chinese Navy) set in the 1990s. This makes it an even better deal and I personally cannot wait. HIGHLY recommended for anyone who is a fan of the sub simulation set. You don't have to learn complex sonar characteristics (unlike Jane's Sub Command) and you can instead concentrate on what you need to do in order to plan and execute your attacks. Attention to detail is also a must. I would also HIGHLY recommend playing this game with nothing but headphones, as true sonar operators would. There are subtle sounds that you can more easily hear (and that will lend to your survival) while wearing them...for example, you can hear when an ASW helicopter is close to your position with headphones that may not be so noticeable with using the sound over speakers. You can also hear torpedoes in the water as some of the more advanced ones (USET-80 for example) have passive homing as well as active and your sonar team won't alert you to their presence until they've determined that the torpedo has you locked. If you love the sub game, pick this one up. If you're not expecting similar play to any other sub game out there, you won't be disappointed.

Amazing simulation to understand the basics of a sub during warfare

My fav silent hunter was #2, this game is very different but still great fun. Love that it performs like a champ on my macbook m1 with zero loadtimes and amazing frame rate. Only complaint is i wish there was more missions. (you can make your own though) . Game needs an expansion or user made scenarios that can be shared.

I've played all of the Silent Hunter versions and must admit that I find CW on par in most respects and very enjoyable. The game is very atmospheric and keeps you coming back for more. There seem to have been several updates since it was initially launched which could mean it wasn't quite ready for release or the developers are keen to enhance and expand its capabilities. Either way, I look forward to future updates to this very engrossing sub-sim.