[Sailor Steve]

A big part of the reason was that as pretty as it may be, the gameplay was anything but. Many of the things that made SH3 so popular were lacking in SH5. The campaign was awful. Though it was claimed to be easy to mod there is still a singular lack of variety in the types of merchants available. Walking through the entire sub was cool for about five minutes. Talking to the officers to keep the morale up got old real fast. You can't run a Type II or Type IX boat. Whereas people compained about having to micromanage the crew in SH3, and that was properly fixed in SH4, SH5 "fixed" it further by removing the crew altogether, so there's nothing to manage.

While it's true that many of those things have been fixed, it's also true that the most talented modders have spent several years fixing what was broken, and are still unable to add many of the features available in earlier versions of the Silent Hunter Franchise. Features like working locks in the canals and harbor entrances are still not there.

So if gorgeous graphics are your raison d'être when judging a game, then yes, SH5 is far beyond anything we've seen. If a realistic feel for the u-boat war is what you're after, then SH3 is still the best game out there.

Understand that I'm not knocking SH5. Many people love it and wouldn't play anything else. I just had such high hopes for it, and while I'm still hoping I'm also still waiting for something that may never happen. But then I still play the 20-year-old Aces of the Deep, so my orientation is a bit different than most.