MicroProse and developer Triassic Games are nearing early access release status for Sea Power: Naval Combat in the Missile Age and between the trailer and some content creators gameplay videos I’ve gotten pretty interested in the experience on tap. Let’s have a look at it from a flight simmers perspective because there’s an awful lot of air combat going on in this sim.
What is it?
From the lead designer of Cold Waters, Sea Power is a naval combat game filled with Cold War era ships, submarines, aircraft, and weaponry and as the title suggests there’s plenty of missile related combat.
The game packs in an impressive 150 Naval units including more than 60 aircraft as well as 130 weapon systems and 50 different ground objects. The game has operations set in the North Atlantic, Persian Gulf, Gulf of Tonkin and Mediterranean Area and a dynamic campaign is planned to arrive in alpha status at early access launch.
From the gameplay videos I’ve watched, the experience centers around two views. One is a top down tactical view showing ships, aircraft, missiles and more while the other is a 3D view with a visual of everything that is going on.
The “fog of war” effect is very real here with the need to use different types of sensors including radar and sonar to locate the enemy. Building a picture of the battlespace and doing things like deploying sonar buoys and conducting MAD sweeps for enemy submarines is all part of the experience.
The whole thing looks, at first glance, to be a little slow and academic with an in-game encyclopedia describing ships, aircraft and weapons. But the 3D gameplay looks immersive with detailed objects and animations. Order a ship to deploy its helicopters and you’ll see them roll out from the hangar, unsweep their blades, power up and takeoff.
In one gameplay video done by Wolfpack345, I saw a fleet defense action with a mix of missile defenses, CIWS guns, F-14s intercepting bombers, and EA-6 Prowlers using electronic warfare to try and confuse the missiles. The whole thing ends up being a slow motion thriller with tense moments of “will that missile get shot down or will it make it through and ruin the whole mission.”
In another gameplay video from Enigma, you can see a smaller scale engagement which is no less gripping.
Finally, one more video I think everyone should watch is this submarine duel showing off the sim experience works just as well underwater as it does on the surface and in the air.
Other gameplay videos I’ve seen have featured lots of helicopters, strike aircraft, air combat and fleet defense against attacking aircraft. Unlike a flight sim, you don’t control the aircraft and sometimes the animations are a little simplified but it really does give you a good overview of a fleet defense mission against all kinds of threats.
Coming in November
The game is set to arrive from publisher MicroProse through the Steam Store this November with an early access launch first and additional features such as the dynamic campaign to be more completely filled out during the early access period.
Stormbirds 
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