Silent Hunter V Announced.

[MKSheppard]

Chertsey, UK – August 17, 2009 – Today, Ubisoft announces the fifth iteration of the highly acclaimed submarine simulation series with Silent Hunter® 5. Developed by Ubisoft Romania, Silent Hunter® 5 is the next installment of the best-selling submarine series of all-time and will be available for the PC in early 2010. Silent Hunter® 5 ventures into uncharted territory and takes players behind the periscope of a German U-boat to take on the Allied Forces in famous battles across the vast Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea. For the first time in the history of the series, players can live the life of a submarine captain from a first-person view and lead a crew in a critical campaign.

Silent Hunter® is the most award-winning submarine series of all time, with nearly 1.5 million copies sold worldwide. The previous release in the franchise, Silent Hunter®: Wolves of the Pacific, made a lasting solid impact on the franchise’s growing fan base after it was released to worldwide critical acclaim, including being named 2007’s “Simulation Game of the Year” by PC Gamer.

Silent Hunter® 5 key features:

• VIEW AS A CAPTAIN: Walk through highly detailed submarines in the new first-person view and access every part of your U-boat.

• BECOME A REAL LEADER: Interact with your crew, watch them perform their daily jobs and experience the tension and fear inside the U-boat through the new advanced order system.

• WAR STRATEGIES: Choose your own strategy and select your targets with a new objective-driven, dynamic campaign.

• ENEMY REACTIONS: Open new locations, upgrades and resupply possibilities, while the Allied ships adjust dynamically to your approach. Your actions will directly impact the evolution of the campaign.

• NEW USER INTERFACE: Prowl the waters with a brand-new user interface. Now, every beginner can successfully command a sub while remaining free of confusion. In expert mode, experienced players will be provided all the necessary information and controls to command the sub completely on their own.

• CINEMATIC EXPERIENCE: Experience the most realistic and immersive Silent Hunter ever created. Improved environment graphics create a powerful level of immersion as you operate authentic, highly detailed U-boats and fight against surface ships.

Silent Hunter®5 is scheduled for release in early 2010.

For more information, please visit www.silenthunter5.com

[Stark]

Yay, a marketing blurb posted in it's entirety. Informative!

[MKSheppard]

Yay, a marketing blurb posted in it's entirety. Informative!

Right now, there isn't much to go on; and you know, there are a few people on this board who'd like to know that SH5 is announced.

[Thanas]

Yes, thank you for that.

I will stick to GWX until SHV's bugs have been fixed...which will be about two years after the release.

[Stark]

LOL It's coming out in about six months (which is a good length of time for testing) and they're keeping it under wraps? Clearly they've learned from their previous efforts.

[Thanas]

LOL It's coming out in about six months (which is a good length of time for testing) and they're keeping it under wraps? Clearly they've learned from their previous efforts.

Meh. They said the same thing about SHIV and look what kind of bugfest that turned out to be.

[Stark]

Heh. My implication is actually that the game isn't finished (since they're not showing/talking about it much) and that they'll rush to meet their 'early 2010' date.

[CaptHawkeye]

No first person battleships for me yet.

[PeZook]

Yes, thank you for that.

I will stick to GWX until SHV's bugs have been fixed...which will be about two years after the release.

I'd play GWX a lot more if loading a mission didn't take ten minutes

I wonder if we'll get another quantum leap in system requirements for a minor improvement in graphics...

[Thanas]

Yes, thank you for that.

I will stick to GWX until SHV's bugs have been fixed...which will be about two years after the release.

I'd play GWX a lot more if loading a mission didn't take ten minutes

True, which is why I complete a career in about....three years.

Seriously though, If you can, get 2 GB of Ram. That cut my loading time in about half.

I wonder if we'll get another quantum leap in system requirements for a minor improvement in graphics...

Yeah, me too.

Oh, and I hope the atlantic water doesn't turn out to be transparent.

[PeZook]

True, which is why I complete a career in about....three years.

Seriously though, If you can, get 2 GB of Ram. That cut my loading time in about half.

I have 3 gigs, and it loads only slightly faster than on a 512 meg laptop

Though there's other stuff that annoys me in that mod, too. Oh, you penetrated a port with your crappy little Type II, sank a cruiser and wrecked a dry dock?

No renown for you!

Everybody knows U-Boat captains only became famous if they sunk ships that were underway

But that's the kind of retarded shit that fan mods often do, and it's merely annoying, while the loading times are just game-breaking, IMHO.

Yeah, me too.

Oh, and I hope the atlantic water doesn't turn out to be transparent.

I could live with transparent water if the game doesn't require a computer twice as strong than SHIV (because it needs to model water splashing on the periscope in EXTREME DETAIL)

Of course, since it's practically guaranteed to be an utter bugfest right after release, we'll probably have some more griping to do.

Also, I expect even more annoyance with crew micro.

[Julhelm]

Not U-Boats again.

[CaptHawkeye]

My thoughts exactly.

How about Escorts for once? The LEAST they could let us do is play as the Destroyers/Corvettes gaurding the convoys. Silent Hunter 4's useless multiplayer even had playable DDs!

Why will no one make me first person battleships?

[Thanas]

True, which is why I complete a career in about....three years.

Seriously though, If you can, get 2 GB of Ram. That cut my loading time in about half.

I have 3 gigs, and it loads only slightly faster than on a 512 meg laptop

Though there's other stuff that annoys me in that mod, too. Oh, you penetrated a port with your crappy little Type II, sank a cruiser and wrecked a dry dock?

No renown for you!

Everybody knows U-Boat captains only became famous if they sunk ships that were underway

Eh? That has never happened to me. I usually get renown for ships that I sink in port as well (not that I do this often, because escorts in GWX are deadly in shallow waters).

However, you do get little renown for just sinking a drydock.

But that's the kind of retarded shit that fan mods often do, and it's merely annoying, while the loading times are just game-breaking, IMHO.

Well, I usually only play GWX when I have five hours of freetime (translation: once a month) anyway, so they don't bother me as well.

What is even more game-breaking are the savegame bugs. You never know when SHIII might load or when it has just decided to wreck all your on-patrol saves.

[MKSheppard]

Don't save while submerged in SH3 or SH4.

It's the time compression and load times which are real game breakers.

[Thanas]

Don't save while submerged in SH3 or SH4.

Haha.

I always save on the surface, with no enemy in sight, everything fully loaded and no fatigue/engines running.

Doesn't really prevent crashes.

[MKSheppard]

They really changed too much between SH3 and SH4 -- going from SH3's interface which worked, to one that didn't in SH4; plus totally messing up the crew management -- I still haven't figured out how to do shit with the crew management in SH4.

[CaptHawkeye]

SH4 was more station oriented while SH3 was more crew oriented. I think the problem was that American boats have substaintially more crew due to their size so they couldn't use the same exact UI system they had in SH3.... But lets face it, the crew control interface in all of the SH games has been FUCKING STUPID. This is a place where they could take some hints from the RTS games and allocate crewman to "control groups" rather than making the Captain tell every little god damn Seaman he should take a 15 minute lunch break occasionally.

EDIT: Has it been stated that the game is running on a totally new engine anyway? To me it looks like a more refined version of the SH4 engine but their is no solid evidence for that claim admittedly. It'd be a good idea if they used the SH4 engine actually. Since they would understand its problems better.

[Uraniun235]

This is a place where they could take some hints from the RTS games and allocate crewman to "control groups" rather than making the Captain tell every little god damn Seaman he should take a 15 minute lunch break occasionally.

Is it really that asinine? Who thinks that sort of thing is actually fun? I can't believe that it stems from "MORE REALISM" because I'm pretty sure the Captain doesn't dick around with making sure people take breaks.

[Duckie]

I'm pretty sure there's just an inherent inability of simulationist game makers to create workable UIs, judging from Paradox's millions of titles, Dwarf Fortress, and Silent Hunter.

[PeZook]

Is it really that asinine? Who thinks that sort of thing is actually fun? I can't believe that it stems from "MORE REALISM" because I'm pretty sure the Captain doesn't dick around with making sure people take breaks.

They just didn't think the interface through. And didn't test it, probably, since what bits of automation are there often don't work, mess up your crew assignments and/or apply to seamen but not officers. For example: when you dive, all watchmen are automatically moved to quarters, but when you surface, only the enlisted men will go back to the conning tower, while you have to move the officer manually.

Also: apparently, u-boat officers could only use one bunk per crew quarters section. Completely realistic!

[Julhelm]

It's still lightyears ahead of Dangerous Waters, where the sonar autocrew are so incompetent the captain must spend the entire game following and identifying contacts whilst juggling the plot which is likewise incompetently managed.

[PeZook]

It's still lightyears ahead of Dangerous Waters, where the sonar autocrew are so incompetent the captain must spend the entire game following and identifying contacts whilst juggling the plot which is likewise incompetently managed.

What's hilarious is that simulationist nerds got orgasms seeing how the sonar station worked because it was SO REALISTIC.

The sad thing is that they had a point, because the rest of that game was so incredibly uninteresting and shallow that the sonar stations were pretty much its only saving grace.

[CaptHawkeye]

Dangerous Waters is a great sim, with excellent attention to detail, a good UI, and lots of scalability in difficulty and realism.

Yet it's still shit.

It's just such a boring game. Playing it feels like purely wasting time. Do ships get into huge, tight formations with eachother, wildly manuevering to change distance and heading with the enemy and vainly hoping the next salvo will hit home?

Nope. It turns out Modern Warfare is 98% Stealth and Detection. The last 2% being firing weapons of unavoidable one hit kill power. That little dot you were watching for an hour has sunk...and all you had to do was press a button. Yay for realism?

Every time someone asks for a "Modern" sim on the Subsim or Ubi forums I reach for my browning. Their is honestly a huge impetus amongst people to ask for games which are not fun.

[Julhelm]

Dangerous Waters is a sonar sim, and that's the problem. It's designed for realism, and not gameplay.

There have been several nuke subsims that have combined accuracy and realism with fun gameplay, such as Red Storm Rising or Fast Attack, the latter of which boast a sonar much more realistic and accurate than that of DW.

Modern warfare can be very exciting as long as the impetus is on a command sim, and not sonar simulation.