By Jim Rossignol on August 17th, 2009 at 7:56 pm.
If you spot something just below the water when you’re out at sea, you can bet it’s a plastic bag. But when it’s not, it’s often a gigantic submersible warship. And we know how you like those. Fortunately for you, U-boatisoft send word that their greatest submarine game is back, and now with first-person elements (possibly RPG elements?) where you can walk around your ship as the captain and “become a real leader”. There’s a trailer, which I’ve posted below, in which the captain suggests that “this is the strangest game ever.” Not quite, but we’ll grant it is a little odd. Silent Hunter V game boasts a dynamic campaign, more help for people who found the previous games too hardcore, and some very detailed underwater boats. Developed by Ubisoft Romania, the big bad menace of the seas will be burst from the depths in early 2010, probably. I’m sure we’ll fish some more details out of the depths very soon.
17/08/2009 at 19:59 Rinox says:
I foresee many an hour spent underwater in my near future. ZEROTIEFE!!
17/08/2009 at 20:04 Vinraith says:
Crap, I’ve still got a ton of 3 and 4 left to play. Not that more Silent Hunter is ever unwelcome, of course.
17/08/2009 at 20:04 Archonsod says:
Huzzah! Looks like we’re back in European waters too.
17/08/2009 at 20:07 cliffski says:
I just see a big black box there, which is a pity because I’m definitely in the mood to be excited about U-boat warfare, as I’m wading through churchills long winded book on the topic these days.
Up periscope and all that.
17/08/2009 at 20:09 Frankie The Patrician[PF] says:
ha, I still got my copy of Silent Hunter SE somewhere…I almost want to try and find it
17/08/2009 at 20:17 Vinraith says:
@cliffski
Try this:
http://www.filefront.com/14305797/SilentHunter5-Debut-Trailer.zip/
17/08/2009 at 20:25 AndrewC says:
Oh gosh, he’s German.
17/08/2009 at 20:29 Roly says:
They did not sound very German for a U-boat crew.
Looking forward to some more SH though.
17/08/2009 at 20:33 subedii says:
Awesome new! Although one slight addendum: Navigating the submarine in first person was actually a feature of SH3. It was taken out in SH4, much to the chagrin of all the hardcore fans. Glad to see it’s back.
I wonder if they’re going to have more epic poetry. SH4 was awesome for its intro:
[url]http://www.gametrailers.com/video/launch-trailer-silent-hunter/17975[/url]
17/08/2009 at 20:45 Bema says:
Well that was a rubbish trailer. And the video player doesn’t appreciate adblock, which is entirely gay.
17/08/2009 at 20:54 nill says:
Sweet!
17/08/2009 at 21:02 Peter_Pace says:
The second guy in the picture of the trailer looks like Niko Bellic.
Maybe thats what he was up to before he strolled into the streets of Liberty City.
17/08/2009 at 21:09 Jim Rossignol says:
“And the video player doesn’t appreciate adblock, which is entirely gay.”
And the blog editors don’t appreciate adblock, either. Funny that.
17/08/2009 at 21:14 Alikchi says:
Or ‘gay’ as ‘bad’, I would hope.
Really looking forward to this. SH3 was great fun, even if I was too lazy to figure out all the super-hardcore torpedo-setting stuff.
17/08/2009 at 21:16 Janek says:
Excellent. I’ve been meaning to go back to a heavily modded SH4 lately, so maybe “practicing for the sequel!” is a good excuse.
17/08/2009 at 21:18 caesarbear says:
Clearly you play a U-boat captain that is an American spy, constantly juggling loyalties to your country and the loyalties to your crew, in a Donnie Brasco type way.
17/08/2009 at 21:18 Wisq says:
To properly appeal to me, that trailer would have needed German voices with subtitles, just like how I play the game.
I preferred Silent Hunter 4 over 3, largely because they fixed a lot of the SH3 problems, and because you were actually on the winning side. It felt like you were actually making a difference, rather than trying to win an impossible battle against fate. But the number one biggest thing I missed was my crew talking to me in German.
Maybe it’s less about atmosphere and more about not being a native speaker of German. When playing Japanese games and watching Japanese media, I always wonder how much of the perceived quality difference is actually due to better voice actors, and how much is just due to not being able to nitpick bad voice acting like I can in English.
Anyway, if SH5 can take the technical and gameplay improvements, add some more, and bring back the German voices, I’ll be more than happy to play for the losing side again.
17/08/2009 at 21:29 Janek says:
I suspect there’ll be a language toggle option, like there was in SH3. Or if not, that intrepid modders will provide replacement packs anyway.
But yeah, I agree.
17/08/2009 at 21:34 ascagnel says:
@Jim Rossignol: I have RPS on my Adblock whitelist. I have Flash off, though. (I like my browser to not crash.)
Do I still get a cookie?
17/08/2009 at 21:34 A-Scale says:
THIS IS THE STRANGEST GAME. EVER.
17/08/2009 at 21:37 Psychopomp says:
GOD
DAMNIT
I didn’t even know four existed :<
There goes another month of my life.
17/08/2009 at 21:38 subedii says:
I wouldn’t be surprised if a German Language pack was modded in (assuming one isn’t available with the game itself. Don’t see why they wouldn’t).
Even Company of Heroes had people copy out the German speech files and put them online so that people playing Wehrmacht and Panzer Elite could enjoy playing those sides with German voiceovers instead of faux-German accented English.
It really is a perception thing. I suspect that if I understood more of what was being said and was more familiar with the language, it would seem a lot less epic. It’s like if you watch a foreign film where they try to throw in some English language phrases and words. To people who don’t understand it it sounds cool, for the ones that do it just sounds cheesy.
I’ll agree with everyone saying that trailer wasn’t all that impressive, but then, you can’t really illustrate a sim game very well in a trailer format. I still think SH4′s approach with the release trailer / intro was spot on though, really caputred the feel of what they were going for.
17/08/2009 at 21:54 Flappybat says:
Good lord that was one awkward trailer.
17/08/2009 at 22:03 Serondal says:
I loved SH3 , actaully did get into the ultra-hardcore manual torpedo setting and IDing ships by hand with the ID manual ect and had a great deal of fun. SH4 wouldn’t run on my computer for some strange reason, which I didn’t really care about I don’t like playing in the PTO with American Submarines any how.
What I’d really like to see is a new extremely detailed nuclear submarine sim where there is a fictional war between US and Russia that allows you to launch nukes and cruise missles and actaully have an effect on the war that you can see by reading news papers or watching TV (or if it’s in the current time line I guess you could read blogs and stuff ;P)
Or maybe a near future Tom Clancy style one.
17/08/2009 at 22:09 jalf says:
Ah, this reminds me of the old days when there was a reason to read Gamespy:
Best SH3 article ever
17/08/2009 at 22:09 Optimaximal says:
That would be mint, especially if you can go rogue or defect.
17/08/2009 at 22:14 Serondal says:
That would make it really interesting! Add an element of political intrige, maybe let you ransom small nations with your nukes :P Of course every government in the world would be sending out Sub hunters after you trying to take you out (or help you get to one of their ports if you want to defect/stop you from getting to said port if they’re the country you’re defecting from)
Maybe in SH5 you’ll be able to go first person and walk around in the ship for real instead of just floating around. If that were the case maybe you could get invaded by enemy marines who try to steal your enigma machine : LHehe
17/08/2009 at 22:15 jackflash says:
Nice. Silent Hunter IV, after all of the patches, is a tremendous game. Leagues better than III, in my opinion, though I know there are those that disagree (get it? leagues? haha).
Something about this trailer felt wrong, though. Hopefully it’s just a crappy marketing team rather than a reflection of a different development direction or something. I hope they keep Ubi Romania as the developers, they nailed the atmosphere in the previous games.
17/08/2009 at 22:26 Acidburns says:
That was a very American sounding U-Boat.
I’ve almost finished a full war tour in Silent Hunter IV with the wonderful Trigger Maru mod. A return to the western front would be wonderful.
17/08/2009 at 22:28 jsutcliffe says:
I have never played a Silent Hunter game. Owned two, played none. Maybe I’ll buy this and add it to my “too complicated to figure out” pile…
On the ad blocking front, I have a Greasemonkey script that wraps ads in a div set to display:none — the ads load, but I don’t see them. Of course, I’m not clever enough to make it find ALL ads, but it’s better than nothing.
17/08/2009 at 22:34 Heliocentric says:
Pretty, but not for me. If they can figure out some kind of coop maybe i could stand the pacing. Running down the boat the isolate a flooding section while shouting over voip that i saw another boat on the radar about north north west before i started running. So yes, i’ll play these games when they add coop. Modders or developers, i don’t mind who.
17/08/2009 at 22:41 rivalin says:
Looks awesome but what I wouldn’t give for a modern space sim where you could walk around your ship…
If space sims are too niche these days then how’d this get made? Space sims used to be far more popular than historical ones.
17/08/2009 at 22:41 Vinraith says:
@Heliocentric
SH already has coop, but everyone gets their own boat. I gather you want “single boat” coop, which sounds fun in principle but would, in practice, usually leave one person with nothing to do I suspect.
17/08/2009 at 22:45 destroy.all.monsters says:
Please consider making these available without having to open up ads. Particularly since when I just tried to see the vid by turning off HostsMan it killed Chrome.
I’ve subscribed and when the ads cause a 30 second plus time out before killing the whole process it’s a bit problematic.
Maybe pimp the subscriptions more?
17/08/2009 at 22:45 moeity says:
As for the Cold War suggestions, the best counter to that was given some time ago on the SubSim forums:
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showpost.php?p=619434&postcount=20
“magine the heart-stopping excitement of a Cold War simlulation as you follow a Russian sub around, being a hole in the water and following it around as it performs its own secret mission of parking itself off the coast of the United States monitoring electronic traffic and then you get to follow the Russian sub back to its home base being a hole in the water and what pulse-pounding heart-stopping action that would be as you follow the Russian sub being a hole in the water I’m about to nut just thinking about it better take my blood pressure medicine I don’t know if I can take the nervous tension of following a Russian sub around while I’m a hole in the water I mean it just doesn’t get any more blood-pounding nerve-wracking that that, now does it?
Or does it.
Well, yes, because you can be a sub on the super secret mission of Ivy Bells! Yes, you too can be a hole in the water as you sneak towards the cable underwater and replace the monitoring equipment and then sneak way. I mean, my God, what pulse-pounding heart-thrilling nerve-tightening excitement that would be! I’m getting light headed just thinking about it. I’m so psyched I want to punch my fist through the wall!
But calm down, bunky, because it gets better! I know, hard to believe, but you haven’t even touched the icing on this cake ‘cuz you also (get ready for it) get to follow a Russian trawler around while you’re a hole in the water and monitor its electronic signals as it monitors electronic signals of American ships on maneuvers. And what happens when you plot and calculate your TMA and run a practice attack maneuver, well, then you just stand down because you’re not going to be allowed to put a fish into that trawler’s guts as much as you might like to. Ecitement! History! Jaw-dropping eye-popping heart-pounding excitement as you follow the Russian trawler around and then slip away being a hole in the water and you go back home, a mission well done and a slap on the back from Admiral Rickover.
Now I know what you’re thinking. That in itself would be more than enough for a gut-wrenching mind-blowing experience but you would be wrong! Because now you get to take your sub and park it under the North Pole and stay there, being a hole in the water, coming up to a polyna occasionally and raising your mast so you can radio your situation and you receive heart-hammering orders to stay at your postion being a hole in the water.
I’m getting the vapors just thinking about it.”
17/08/2009 at 22:46 GreatUncleBaal says:
This will surely join my list of games that fascinate me, but that I haven’t quite got around to playing properly. I own SH3 and 4 – I haven’t had a chance to give them the time they deserve. I seem to buy a lot of games to immerse myself in the atmosphere, yet not quite play the actual game, if you see what I mean.
17/08/2009 at 22:49 Vinraith says:
I agree with other comments here that I’ve always hoped the SH guys would take a stab at modern submarine warfare. I adore the WW2 stuff, and wouldn’t want them to stop, but a modern game here or there would be great too.
17/08/2009 at 23:11 Brass Gerbil says:
Hrm. Disabled ABP and reloaded page. No go. Restarted browser. No go. So now I’m going elsewhere to find the video. That worked out well, didn’t it?
I’m keeping ABP. Get used to it and find a way to advertise without running off all the customers, or you’ll soon have none.
17/08/2009 at 23:13 Lucas says:
I’m sick of Ubisoft’s half-assed support and consolized games. Silent Hunter still hasn’t gotten out of WWII? Been there, done that. They’ll have to set the bar very very high to get my money again anytime soon.
17/08/2009 at 23:15 cliffski says:
FWIW I have adblock turned off and its still black. Normally I see videos here fine.
Even the annoying smileys ad with its sound is working, but just a black box in this post :(
17/08/2009 at 23:26 Bema says:
“And the blog editors don’t appreciate adblock, either. Funny that.”
@Jim: Funny? Certainly not. I was thinking more along the lines of short sighted.
I use adblock to hide the finicky adverts that have a tendancy to screw up/crash my browser and to block the increasing number of distrubing images that turn up as peoples avatars/signatures on forums these days. I never said anything about my obscuring/hiding the adverts on this page (although seeing as the advert im currently looking at has a picture of a big fat woman and wants to tell me how to loose 42lbs in 3 months, im considering it).
I just said the video player conflicts with the add-on, which is poor form in my view.
Back to the trailer: After watching it again, it still hasn’t improved. The game will, no doubt, be brilliant – but i’ve always found their trailers/videos to be a tad…under-representitive (although that’s not really the word im looking for) of the game.
17/08/2009 at 23:50 kwanchu says:
holy macaroni, can i get extra cheese on that trailer
18/08/2009 at 00:35 Frye says:
I hope this will finally beat Dangerous Waters by Sonalysts Combat Simulations. The only modern day sub sim i know of. Actually, it’s the only simulator game i ever play even though graphics are getting a bit dated. I could never get the hang of Silent Hunter because turning on the AI targeting made things too easy and doing things myself was just too hard, so i always ended up missing my torpedoes or letting the computer do the fun stuff.
18/08/2009 at 00:37 Frye says:
I hope this will finally beat Dangerous Waters by Sonalysts. The only modern day sub sim i know of. Actually, it’s the only simulator game i ever play even though graphics are getting a bit dated. I could never get the hang of Silent Hunter because turning on the AI targeting made things too easy and doing things myself was just too hard, so i always ended up missing my torpedoes or letting the computer do the fun stuff.
18/08/2009 at 01:22 Skye Nathaniel says:
That was a pretty terrible trailer, and not just for the voice acting; moving around a submarine (or a battlestar) and performing different functions at different physical stations during a time of crisis is one of my dreams as a PC gamer, but these useless cinematics seem to be the closest we’re ever to come to that, as the games themselves invariably feature a full task-integrated interface that doesn’t require you to actually be anywhere. As far as I’ve seen, anyway. The impression of that cramped, utilitarian physical space in this trailer is simply unfair.
18/08/2009 at 02:12 Fenchurch says:
I am super super excited about this. :-3
Yet more fodder for anecdotes to bore my suffering friends with! x-D
18/08/2009 at 03:16 Hypocee says:
Wow, I just had a John Walker experience with the dialogue and voicework. I didn’t know my face could look that aghast.
18/08/2009 at 04:22 Caiman says:
That’s definitely one of those trailers that tries very hard to put the intended audience off the game. Ugh. But the concept of walking around your own vessel (submarine, ship, spaceship) and also having full control over it is something I’ve wanted to see for a long time.
18/08/2009 at 04:47 Wintrmute says:
Apologies for going OT and mentioning the ads/adblocking..
But I do find the ads that show up (for me) on RTS quite inappropriate, and thus I do run adblock here.
I wouldn’t mind if there were ads for PC gear, games, even music and movies would be fine. However the random female midriffs + weight-loss ads bother me, particularly as I like to read RPS during my lunchbreak at work.
I don’t know if the ad topics are controllable by you or not.. but if you can set them up to be a bit more relevant to your readership then I think you’ll make everyone happy.
18/08/2009 at 07:38 Jim Rossignol says:
We’re working on making the ads more relevant at the moment. The topics are not immediately controllable by us, but the money generated is *vital* to keeping RPS running.
18/08/2009 at 09:02 wm says:
WW2 German U-boat: yes, please.
The broadest American accent ever: no, thank you.
18/08/2009 at 09:35 esoj says:
I really need to get around to playing 4 now that I have a computer that can do the game justice. I got a collectors edition not long after release for the price of a normal edition but my computer was underpowered then and then I just left it on the shelf where has it been ever since. well be great to play it on my new computer with everything maxed out.
18/08/2009 at 09:36 pepper says:
Yah! More Silent Hunter! As long as they do not change the MP to much then im happy.
18/08/2009 at 12:33 The Sombrero Kid says:
CHEEESSIIIERRR DAMMIT!
18/08/2009 at 12:41 phuzz says:
I remember reading a Tom Clancy book (I was bored ok?) called SSN, from a game of the same name, of which some info here. Anyway, this is set in a LA class nuke boat in a hypothetical conflict over the Spratly islands in the modern day.
I’ve not heard much about the game so I assume it’s probably rubbish, but it might scratch the itch for a modern sub simulation…
18/08/2009 at 12:43 The Sombrero Kid says:
the internet and thus your blog is as dependant on the adblock and it’s ilk as it is on ads, blaming adblock for the woes of blogger finances is the same in my eyes as blaming bit torrent for loss of revenue as a game developer, i feel what you provide is worth the ad space on my screen, more even, but i also feel it’s the right of the consumer to make that choice, although pointing out the relationship between ads adblock and your revenue stream is no bad thing and reminds us to turn off adblock if we want to give you monies.
18/08/2009 at 12:58 Kieron Gillen says:
The only difference is that we would have directly earned money from you by you reading it. Torrenting doesn’t in fact directly lose developers anything. It was never a sale. Reading our site *was* a “sale”. In fact, with bandwidth costs, we actively pay for you to read us.
What adblocking is more analogous to is using a program to circumvent a pay-for MMO’s system so rather than paying to log in, you can just go and play.
These are micro-amounts of loss or gain, but it’s neither here nor there in the abstract ethics of the thing.
It’s main similarity to torrenting is that there’s nothing that you can do about it bar shrugging and mentioning it occasionally, hoping that the people who dig us enough to read may turn off adblock.
But if I could make the site magically not work on anyone adblocking without causing any pain*? Totally would.
KG
*i.e. No forcing sound ads, etc.
18/08/2009 at 13:08 The Sombrero Kid says:
good point actually, although i still reckon the right to choose what comes down you pipe and onto your screen is a necessity, and from a consumer point of view i think if your dissatisfied with the product you shouldn’t have to pay for it.
18/08/2009 at 13:17 jalf says:
@The Sombrero Kid: Obvious answer: You choose by going to the site. And if you’re dissatisfied with the product, you shouldn’t use it.
I’m not sure I see the justification for “I should be allowed to actively cost RPS money”. Should you be allowed to use their bandwidth without letting them decide what to send to your browser?
18/08/2009 at 13:25 The Sombrero Kid says:
@jalf
i believe that RPS also should have the right not to send content they feel is being used in a way they don’t intend, it’s not RPS’s intentions i’m concerned about, there are unscrupulous types out there and firefoxs security hinges on using content blockers.
also not all browsers render pictures and i don’t think they should be illegal although i do think people should be allowed to discrimiate about the content they provide based on the renderer used.
18/08/2009 at 13:32 Kieron Gillen says:
“from a consumer point of view i think if your dissatisfied with the product you shouldn’t have to pay for it.”
That’s the thing. That only works if you return the product. You no longer have the product, and you have your money back. You continuing to use the product after claiming to not be happy about it… well, it strikes me as somewhat disingenuous.
KG
18/08/2009 at 13:38 The Sombrero Kid says:
I accept there are disingenuous uses for adblock and i don’t condone or support them, but the point I’m was making about it’s similarity to bit torrent is that the disingenuous uses don’t render the tool unscrupulous.
18/08/2009 at 14:45 Hypocee says:
Do you get money per view, then? Not just click-throughs? My state of knowledge was that payments were usually based on some form of clicks * percentage click-throughs, so those of us (like me) who were never ever ever ever going to click through One Rule My Lord were only dragging down the average by loading the ad.
18/08/2009 at 14:47 Jim Rossignol says:
It’s a total mix. Some ads are pay per view, some pay per click, some pay per action beyond the click (buying stuff). It depends entirely on the campaign.
18/08/2009 at 16:16 Wisq says:
For what it’s worth, I found the problem on my end was with NoScript, not ad blocking of any sort. Some permission wasn’t being enabled so I couldn’t even see the black box people talk about, and the site with the permission problem was not showing up in the usual NoScript popup menu, so the only way I could get the video is to “temporarily allow all on this page”.
18/08/2009 at 17:45 Novotny says:
What’s the problem with germans speaking fluent English with heavy American accents?
Complete loss of immersion.
18/08/2009 at 18:25 Serondal says:
@moeity – Many modern fighter sims (Say Black Shark and such) assume that the war broke out into some sort of limited non-nuclear combat between Nato or UN and Russia ect there is no reason not to make a modern sub-sim totally with-out combat. It’s even been done before
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/688(I)_Hunter/Killer
It would be interesting to see a more modern take on this same game with better graphics, sounds, ect as well as a well written campaign that allows you have some direct effect on the conflict either by sinking enemy shipping or destroying enemy warships/submarines or launching cruise missiles or nukes at land based targets to assist ground troops ect. A game can be realistic physically and but still be about a fictional situation
as far as Ads go I don’t mind having ads on my webpage as long as there are no pop up ones.
18/08/2009 at 21:36 destroy.all.monsters says:
My last comment vis a vis ads (in this thread) – Jim had said in the “Help Us with Ads” thread “It wouldn’t take too many people subbing at $2 a month for RPS to be worthwhile.”
How many more? I don’t mean to be a pain in the midst of your teething problems but honestly I’d prefer to be in on a site that is membership based as long as it doesn’t turn into gamespy or something.
If that is unacceptable please see if there’s a way for people who subscribe to bypass this stuff. Or make the subs $5 or something if you really must.
Also I tried to make comments to this effect in the thread noted above and it wouldn’t let me for some odd reason.
18/08/2009 at 21:39 Jim Rossignol says:
Well, more than we expect to get, frankly. And advertising does at least mean the site is free to everyone.
18/08/2009 at 22:37 Sunjammer says:
How improbable isn’t it that the one hardcore sim that keeps seeing high profile updates is a subsim. You’d think folks would be much more keen on like.. Shooty planes and such business.
I’m a huge SH fan, and not just because of my hydrophobia. This is rad.