Brief ‘n’ briny (a quick maritime news round-up)

Calling the latest freebie from Wargame Design Studio a demo does it a serious disservice. None of turnless Spanish-American War’s engagements are included in other Naval Campaigns titles, and show me another demo that lets you play, from start to finish, twenty scenarios, and I’ll show you a narwhal tusk with a right-hand thread.

True, half of Spanish-American War’s scraps are variants of two of the most decisive battles in naval history, but this is still an unusually generous and novel gift. Amongst the hypothetical scenarios supplied is a duel between the Oregon and the Temerario inspired by a fanciful period newspaper story, and a nocturnal attack on Spanish warships in Santiago de Cuba harbour involving the first ‘modern’ submarine, the Holland VI.

Subsim.com forumite, Bracer, is ploughing on with Battleship Command: Scharnhorst, his promising WW2 warship sim, despite paltry Patreon support. In his latest devlog (embedded above) the Swedish solo dev demonstrates, amongst other things, BCS’s impressive geographic scope, atmospheric day-night transitions, refreshing first-person freedom, and realism-rich gunnery interface.

Half-price until Thursday, Early Access Destroyer: The U-Boat Hunter is “nearing the finish line” according to a recent communique from Iron Wolf Studio. While the dev’s use of the word ‘nearing’ is a mite misleading (It turns out, December is the earliest ETA for v1.00), their plans to implement survivor rescuing, UI improvements, and a “new battle variant” before the big day, have met with general approval.

Encounters with Magnapinna – bigfin squid – are now possible in diverting deep sea drone operator sim subROV. These seldom glimpsed and poorly understood creatures trail tentacles up to 26ft long and can survive in the deepest recesses of the ocean. Like the SOLARIS, a new in-game attachment, the shy cephalopods probably wouldn’t have been digitized if they hadn’t appeared in recent dive livestreams.

Developer sqr3lab’s current preoccupation is modelling what remains of USS Hoel, a destroyer sunk during the brutal Battle of Leyte Gulf. Until the game gets a Titanic facsimile (ETA: Christmas), this WW2 war grave will serve as the game’s biggest wreck.

Talking of wet war graves, Kingdom of Wreck Business, a trialable £8.50 sim that encourages users to pillage sunken ships for “metal and valuable artifacts” has been mercilessly red thumbed since its launch a month ago. The bugs, poor performance, and inadequate instructions, sound fixable – whether WarZoneLab have the will and means to address the superficiality some users are reporting, remains to be seen.