During the last “pre-pandemic” year of 2019, two subsims were released to STEAM early access, Wolfpack and UBOAT. Both were different in scope and design; Wolfpack aimed to be a hands-on U-boat simulator primarily intended for co-op play, with 5 roles. UBOAT, on the other hand, featured immersive solo gameplay with vastly improved AI crew managements and exciting missions.
But hold on, there was a third, very exciting project announced in 2019: Crush Depth. It was initially titled Uboatsim and billed as “a first-person type VII U-boat simulator where you experience operating and maintaining the U-boat’s complex systems, engaging enemy shipping, celestial navigation, survival mechanics, as well as the lighter side of life on the boat.” Soon, the developer Marius began assembling a team of enthusiastic contributors and partnered with ‘Freudeskreis U-995’, an organization dedicated to preserving the U995 in Kiel, Germany.
Admittedly ambitious in scope, the team has been diligently building out the U-boat, equipment in the U-boat, and managing the code framework. There was a plan announced in September 2021 of making the change from Unity to the Unreal5 engine, not a small feat, with a very impressive reveal video. Since then, due to some licensing requirements, that may have changed. A tech demo was released on Steam Jan 20, 2021, and there have been 245 client side updates released since. s
The demo features a museum where you can browse the various equipment meant to go in the game and the layout of the U-boat model. There are a few target practice activities, shooting down planes and firing the deck gun into a target ship. The menu contains some info about MMO in the future.
I’m glad to see guys who really pour their hearts into a project like this, and I wish them all the success in the world. ssvideo
You can try the demo yourself here.
