$9.99Silent Hunter® III Hunt convoys from the deep
Command a German U-boat in World War II's Battle of the Atlantic. Track convoys through the periscope, work out your firing solution, and hold your breath as destroyers hunt you overhead. A deep, tense submarine simulation that still rewards patience like nothing else, and one you can tune from gentle to brutally realistic.
Is Silent Hunter® III worth it?
Silent Hunter® III is worth it if…
- you like slow, careful planning over instant action
- you enjoy games where tension comes from waiting, not shooting
- you want to tune realism yourself, from gentle to punishing
- you have patience for an older game that mods can bring up to modern screens
Screenshots
The long hunt for the perfect shot
Most of a patrol is quiet. You plot an intercept, creep along at periscope depth, and wait while a convoy's smoke plumes grow on the horizon. Then the work starts: tracking a target's speed and bearing, feeding numbers into the torpedo data computer, choosing the moment to fire. When it goes wrong, it goes wrong fast. A destroyer finds you, depth charges shake the hull, and you go silent and deep, listening. The tension is the point, and it builds patrol after patrol.
A career that grows with the war
The campaign is dynamic and non-linear: your decisions as a commander shape your own naval war story. You start in the small, early Type II boats and can work your way up to the Type VII, the long-range Type IX, and finally the advanced Type XXI. Success on patrol earns you standing, and your crew takes orders and evolves based on how each patrol goes, earning awards and promotions as they improve. The war itself moves on around you: Allied tactics and technology get better as the years pass, and the easy early hunting gives way to a much deadlier Atlantic. Surviving the whole war is not guaranteed.
Hunting convoys with friends
Up to eight players can crew the war together over LAN, coordinating the boat's stations as a team instead of running everything alone. That fits the game's rhythm well: one person on the periscope, someone working the numbers, everyone agreeing on when to dive before the escorts get close. It is a slow, shared kind of multiplayer, built around talking through an attack plan and then holding your nerve together when the depth charges start. If your group is used to quick lobby shooters, expect the opposite, and a much better story to tell afterwards.
Can you play it solo?
Can you play it solo?
Yes, the whole campaign is built as a single-player career, and that is how most people play it. You command the boat yourself, giving orders to your crew, who handle their stations as you direct. Multiplayer over LAN is an optional extra for up to eight players, not the core of the game.
Is it hard to learn?
It is friendlier than most simulators. There is a naval academy tutorial for the basics, and realism settings you can adjust, so you can start simple and add complexity as you learn. The easy part is getting the boat to move and fire; the hard part is the aiming maths, which can take real study to master.
How long does a campaign last?
Long. A single patrol can take hours of stalking and travel, and a full career spans the whole war across multiple boats and crews. Time compression speeds up the empty stretches, dropping back to real time the moment an aircraft or enemy ship is spotted.
