Seafarer: The Ship Sim Review | An Ambitious Journey Across Open Waters

This Seafarer: The Ship Sim review sees us take to the open waters in an ambitious maritime simulation that is a clever blend of cargo haulage, rescue operations and ocean exploration on Xbox Series X. Living by the sea myself, I sometimes take it for granted. The vast expanse of water, its unpredictable nature and how useful it is to our planet. Plenty of my real-life mates work in the fishing trade: it’s hard graft, and being out on the ocean for days and weeks at a time takes its toll. This one has Xbox Play Anywhere functionality as well, so you can dip in wherever you can access your Xbox library of games.

Seafarer: The Ship Sim does an excellent job of portraying the feel of being out at sea. In the early moments, you’ll get to grips with how to navigate your vessel. I’ll be honest and tell you I struggled big time here and had to Google how to manoeuvre as well. About half an hour of my time was spent spinning the boat in circles until I finally got the knack of movement. Part of my brain was anticipating the boat to accelerate like a speedboat, but this is realism, and you’ll be moving at a slower rate of knots. It’s slow- paced, but it also gives you the time to take in the sights.7

What I like is that the game eases you in gently, but you always feel a sense of responsibility. You get that the moment you pull into your first dock, but you have to get the path from the coastguard before you can proceed. There is a clever progression system that will grant you opportunities as you progress through your naval career. The early jobs serve as a tutorial, easing you into ship navigation and logistics, securing loads and preparing for hauling goods across the ocean. This was a nice surprise, as I wasn’t expecting the depth outside of boat handling, but you get to see the aspects before a job takes place.

Once reputation rises and you become more capable, opportunities will unlock for you to branch out into the exciting work. Whilst I enjoyed gaining the revenue and unlocking more, it does start to become a bit repetitive. I’d love it if you could expand the business and manage elements of a bigger fleet whilst you also work yourself, but perhaps I’m asking too much of the developers’ fine work here.

There is some variety though, and it comes in the form of rescue missions. These missions stray away from the slow-paced, calm, and collected nature of hauling goods. Instead, you will find yourself responding to distress calls, saving stranded vessels and assisting people in danger at sea. What I loved about these jobs was how tense they could make you feel. Searching for someone in distress in the middle of a storm with poor visibility brings a frantic nature to how you approach each scenario. It’s a welcome change of pace and mixes up the gameplay a bit if you grow tired of the commercial work.

The biggest highlight for me throughout my time with Seafarer: The Ship Sim was just how impressive the water physics were. Water reacts as you’d expect it to; seeing the way the ocean reacts to the changing conditions was remarkable to look at. Dynamic weather conditions impact how you tackle certain jobs. Fog, rain and choppy waves can make it challenging to keep to your path, but on occasion it’ll be a casual sail towards the mesmerising sunset. The ships themselves look incredibly detailed, and I imagine they are representative of the real-world vessels you see. I enjoyed looking around the interior and seeing that you could enter some of the living quarters, which was a nice touch.

Audio design knits in well with the great work done on the visual side. They have done well to capture the atmosphere of what it would sound like being out there. The hum of the engines, the creaks and the lapping and crashing of waves. When you’re on calm waters, it just feels tranquil, as it would in real life. It presents that genuine feeling of loneliness and that calm before the storm, as they say. Weather effects also sound fantastic; the rain beating off the roof of your cab, loud wind, thunder and more make it sound realistic.

Being out on the open ocean was an enjoyable experience for the most part. Seafarer: The Ship Sim is a fantastic simulation of working out on the water, transporting cargo, responding to emergencies, getting stuck into coast guard patrols and more. Whilst I found the learning curve quite steep from the get-go, perseverance does eventually mean comfortable gameplay. Most simulation titles do tend to lack in the looks department, but this one has some stunningly beautiful backdrops and mechanics that push realism. Whilst I didn’t touch on it during this review as I didn’t manage to test the feature, the game has online co-op multiplayer which will extend the staying power on the seas.

Our score

7.5/10

Good

Xbox Nation Verdict