Master the minutiae of everyday operations on a military vessel, stalk battleships to land the perfect torpedo strike, or simply explore the deep blue sea in the best submarine games on PC.
COLD WATERS
As the commander of a nuclear sub, you must prevent mutually assured destruction as the Cold War escalates. Battle Soviet warships, intercept convoys, and deliver special forces deep behind enemy lines.
You’re as much the prey as you are a predator, and you’ll often get the drop on an enemy ship only to discover that two others have been tracking you from long range, and have sent you a pair of torpedoes to dodge.
WORLD OF WARSHIPS
They said it would never happen, but submarines are now available in the free-to-play multiplayer naval arena that is World of Warships.
Subs have a very low health pool, but can hide by diving deep underwater only to surface elsewhere and flank their enemies. Developer Wargaming is working on new sonar ping mechanics and anti-submarine defences.
UBOAT
Blending third-person crew management with first-person action, UBOAT strikes an intoxicating balance of strategy and torpedo-propelled combat that will appeal to casual and hardcore fans of submarine and war games.
What makes this submarine game special is that you can go into first person as the commander and walk through your U-boat to check on the crew, and even hand out some discipline.
WOLFPACK
You have to really know what you’re doing to succeed in Wolfpack, so if you don’t know your way around a U-boat then this co-op game may not be for you.
Everything takes place in first person, so there’s no external view or set of crew management mechanics to distract you from fully immersing yourself in the task at hand as you patrol the seas.
BAROTRAUMA
In Barotrauma you design your own submarine and set off to hunt down horrific alien sea monsters. It’s entirely playable alone, but is at its best in co-op, where your mistakes will snowball into rolling, comical disasters.
There’s plenty of complexity involved in just keeping your sub running without it erupting in flames, so it’s not hard to imagine how quickly and dramatically things go awry when sea monsters get involved.
SUBNAUTICA
While ostensibly a seafaring survival game, you do spend a lot of time bumbling around the sea floor in a teeny submersible in Subnautica.
No naval battles here, though - you simply need to survive after crash-landing on an ocean planet. You’ll start by living off of kelp in your floating pod, and end up crafting your own mini submarine and underwater research base.