Very disappointed with Steam but the game is good after you fix it yourself.
Something to be aware of is this game in most cases WILL NOT PLAY after download from Steam without jumping through some hoops. You will most likely have to fix the problems with this game yourself which is unsatisfactory but guess there's no way around that. When I first purchased from Steam and tried to play I got the notorious "service not available" error and the game does not launch. It appears that "Uplay" is the problem. at least it was for me. To fix this problem I went to Ubisoft and downloaded the "OFFICIAL" updated version of Uplay. I DO NOT RECOMMEND A 3RD PARTY site download but that's up to you. Here is the legit Ubisoft link for the Uplay update to get Silent Hunter V to work:
https://uplay.ubisoft.com/en-GB. After downloading and installing Uplay directly from Ubisoft the game works like it should on my 64-bit Windows 10 Pro computer with the latest windows updates.

This is something that Steam should know and take care of before taking your money and expecting you to figure things out on your own. That is very unprofessional of Steam and makes them look very bad. This is a widely experienced problem with Silent Service V and Steam should be all over this fix but they are not.
This worked for me but your mileage may vary.

Silent Hunter 5: Battle of the Atlantic, isn't a terrible game by any means. It can be quite fun at times and exciting. Unfortunately, the glitches and bugs out weigh any fun this game will give to you. With the corrupted save files, ghost ships etc. But, if these were the only problems with the game, hell, I'd say give it a shot. Alas, it is not. And the problem this game suffers from, is not the game itself, no no, It's the beautiful, glorious, riveting Ubisoft.

You've just installed the game. You hit the play button of course! Time for some fun, you'll give the game a shot. A few minutes later Uplay shows up to tell you that, "Hi! You need to create another account! Along with the millions and millions of other online accounts you already have! Ha ha!" So, begrudgingly, you decide to make another damned account. Twenty minutes later you're account is set up. Perfect. You've given them the product key and you're ready to play.


Heck, maybe you even liked the game a bit. But a few months pass, you haven't played the game in a while, you uninstalled it because it was taking up room, and you thought, "I'll reinstall it if I ever want to play it again." So you get this odd urge to play a game on the high seas, sinking shipping and what not. You click the install button, wait a few, and you're off! Or, so you think. Uplay comes back and says, "Hi again! Please activate you're product by entering your product key to play!" Finding this strange since you already activated it once, you curiously do so. Copy and paste, and you're done. You reach for the OK button, you click. What happens? "Sorry ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥! This key is already being used by another account! Please contact our AMAAAAAAAZING customer support for more information! Ha ha!"




~Ubisoft
"Actually ♥♥♥♥ you."
1986-2014~




P.S Get Silent Hunter 3.

I know, I know ...

The game is busted. It doesn't work. Bugs all over the place. Don't buy it ...

... and so on, and so forth.

However, in years past, I've played this game for hours on end, without any bugs, no CTDs, nothing. So, how did I do it?

Mods. Mods are the key to just about every game from Ubisoft (which is not one of my favorite game publishers, but they do have some great ideas). Specifically, the Wolves of Steel (TWoS), which can be found at SubSim.com. How good is it? At times, you would swear that you are the Kapitanleutnant in the movie "Das Boot". I've devoured that movie (including the 5-hour version of it), and I love TWoS when connected with Silent Hunter 5.

You start the campaign game in the Eastern Baltic, at a port which was Hitler's last bloodless conquest. War has just broken out against Poland. At least, it is just about to break out: the date is August 31, 1939, and there is the Polish Navy to deal with.

After you clear the port, you go on an inspection tour of your "Boot" - short for "Unterseeboot". You climb down the ladder into the conning tower, and then into the control (while your crew stands watch on the bridge). You speak to the navigator, the Chief, and go forward through the hatch and speak to your radio operator and sound man. If you turn around, you'll see your own cabin (a tiny little place with a curtain, your "desk", and your bunk). Just forward of that location in the ward room, some crew quarters, and the torpedo room. Going aft, you find some more crew quarters, the tiny galley (which was supposed to prepare food for 53 crewmen), the engine room, and the electric motor room.

If you've ever watched "Das Boot", all of these locations look eerily familiar (and by the way, I've toured the U-555 which is currently on display at the Museum of Science and Industry, in Chicago.

As you continue your operations against the Polish, the British, and all of Germany's enemies (later to include the United States), and you are pursued by aircraft and destroyers, you may feel a surge of adrenaline, increased heart rate ... you feel like you are there. The game gets harder, as the years pass, and if you survive.

The graphics are beautiful, the gameplay is seamless, and it functions like Ubisoft SHOULD HAVE made it function.

To make it work right, you simply have to get the Wolves of Steel mod. It's free. And the basic game costs only $10, so what have you got to lose?

If you have any interest at all, in WW2 naval warfare, and specifically in the U-boat campaign in the Atlantic, you simply have to buy this game.

Strongly recommended ....

After-Action report:
Just two nights ago, I guided my Type VIIb boat into the Gulf of Danzig (using The Wolves of Steel megamod), and found a Polish taskforce consisting of two destroyers. Although I approached them with decks awash (to lower my profile on the horizon) a lookout must have seen us. The bottom was 67 meters, so I went to 50 meters depth and went silent.

Depth charges were all over the place, and we got shook up pretty badly, but took no serious damage. Suddenly, the depth charge attacks ended. I judged that the destroyers had run out them, and took my boat up to periscope depth. Carefully edging the attack scope up, till it just broke the surface. I saw one of the destroyers about 500 meters off. I made a quick resolution of the attack and sent two torpedoes its way, aiming just below the bridge. Both hit, and the destroyer went down quickly.

Meanwhile, the other destroyer started to run away, but he was very close, also. I made a snapshot with tube 3 & 4, and one of them hit. When tube one was loaded, I hit him, again. He went down very fast.

I'm now on my way to my new base, at Kiel. In the interim, I sank two Polish merchant vessels, one with a torpedo, and one with gunfire.

Used to be acceptable (once modded) to play. Now it's been removed from Ubisoft's supported games and so can't be launched directly from Steam as it never connects (there's nothing to connect to).

It is possible to download Ubisoft Connect from the Ubisoft site directly which technically allows you to bypass this, however it demands the CD Key (options for game on Steam has this), however, when you enter it, it says it's already registered with another account and you still can't play it.

Absolutely disgusting that customers who've paid money for a product can no longer use it, and even worse that Steam are STILL selling the 'game'.

WARNING: THIS GAME ONLY WORKS IF YOU DO THE FOLLOWING
1) After downloading the game and BEFORE installation you HAVE to download Ubisoft Connect, create an account and enter the game's activation key. Otherwise when you go to install the game you'll run into a Ubisoft network error.

2) Install the game, then close it.

3) Go to the Subsim website and download the Wolves of Steel super mod and self installer. Make sure the mod is installed in the same directory as Silent Hunter 5.

4) Start the game. If you start it and it shows up in a window in the corner of your screen with no audio and response; then just let the video play all the way till the end and then close steam, if that doesn't remove the window then restart your computer.

5) Go to the Silent Hunter .exe location, usually found in c:/steam/steamapps/common/Silent Hunter 5.
Right-click SH5.exe, select Properties, select the Compatibility tab, and then select the Disable display scaling on high DPI settings check box.

6) Run the game and enjoy.

AGAIN, this game is completely unplayable without all these steps so avoid it completely if you are unwilling or unable to do all of them. Ubisoft released a broken game and never patched or fixed it properly but thankfully the diligent and talented folks over at Subsim created a brilliant megamod that not only makes the game work for once but also creates a rich, immersive experience that's unequaled in other sub simulators.

UBI Soft no longer supports this game and it won't launch.

Therefore the game won't run at all!!!! Not even in an off line option!

This game should be removed from the Steam Store.

This game had so much promise. You can get around the hell of Uplay, but the game is really really, really buggy. And the fact that most mods dont work with the steam version, your just sol. The game is visually beautiful, and there is something inertly great about being stealthy in the sea and then evaiding capture, but the bugs will have you ripping your hair out. Radar contacts sometimes dont work, and you'll be searching for multiple hours real time waiting to run into someone. AA gunners wont attack planes that are VERY relentless, let alone actually kill them. 6/10 times they wont even shoot at the plane when you have the gun armed, manned and ready; and when they do attack, 8/10 times even an experienced gunner wont bring them down.

I wanted to love this game so so much, but Ubisoft failed us. There are no updates to the game in over 5 years; the only "news" steam has on it was in 2010, and thats just them saying "hey we have this now".

There is no explination of how to fire torpedos without manually entering eveything in. It took me a min to figure it out--online, not in game--and the way it was implimented was fail. You have numbers 1-3 on your projected torpedo trajectory, and you line up the numbers with the enemy ships numbers. Its really easier to just manually do it, but for new players both are very confusing and there is NO tutorial. Steam says in the description, "Now, every beginner can successfully command a sub free of confusion." That could not be any more of a lie. The tutorial is a joke, and you will actually have an icon at the top of your screen always telling you "use the mouse buttom to look around". That could just be a glitch i personally have, but either way it proves my points. In SH4, if you decided to not manually everything in, it was point and fire. Which if your a beginner, is fun and easy. It is not fun in SH5 for beginners, unless you take the time to learn manually doing everything.

This game could have been fantastic. And I do wish SH 6 would be made; but it cant be made by ubisoft. They will screw it up like they have since SH4. I have not played SH3, but many say it is the best one, so check that out first. The odd of anyone else making a SH game is slim to none, but one can dream.

Its really sad Ubisoft rushes everything (i wont even start a Assassins Creed rant) always pushing out the next new product. They put the product out, then once it stops selling, they literatly DO NOT CARE if the game gets buggy, at LEAST in regards to SH series. "Whats in if for us?" they ask themself. "Why update the game when no one will buy it from us?". Well, thats because you guys released a buggy half assed game and didn't put the love into it. Thats why I dont love it. If you guy just made ONE update to the game, and cleared up the rampent bugs, MANY people who play this game would recommend it to others. But alas, your Ubisoft, and you dont give a ♥♥♥♥.

Sorry for putting words in your mouth Ubi, but you know its true.

Edit: I'd like to update this, though it is more directed towards Ubisoft. As aformentiond, I do enjoy SH4 better, it seems more thought out, but bugs are still very much present in earlier patch(s) of the game. After doing some research, v1.5 fixes an issues with magnetic impact toggle not working, which is in my opinion a major hinderence to stratigical gameplay (though not game breaking of course).
But you should know that when purchasing SH4 from steam, you are only getting v1.3. In order to get v1.5, from steam, you need to also purchase the DLC U boat missions. This is ridiculous. I have never encountered a game where you need to purchase DLC in order to get a patch that applies to root game. Its really like they are trying to force our hand. I think the general point has gotten across. It definatly will be once you read the reviews for that game, everything advises you to not get it from Steam. Whats really sad, is that I'm actually very tempted to buy the DLC, I want that update, because honestly this game series is the poster child for sub sims. They basically have a monopoly on it and look where that has taken us, the consumer. Is sub sim a nitch market? Yes. Although I would argue the genre is no more or less a nitch market then 4x games, or survival games; usually there needs to be market compitition for a genre to, for lack of a better word, get better. You need to try and build the game better then the other guy, but with the SH series there was pratically no compitition, which i believe let to SH5 sucking.

If only I appied the time I took to write this id apply to my school papers.
I'm also quite happy the one time I gave a ♥♥♥♥ to write a review for a game it actually becomes the most helpful, albeit negative review. I hope sometime down the line, I can change this to a recommendation.

Burn in hell ubisoft

Don't bother with the Steam version, just buy an activation key from Amazon and download from Uplay directly. I've done that and experienced no problems getting this running on Windows 10.
You NEED mods to make this a genuinely enjoyable game however because SH5 was rushed out of the door and all support for the game was dropped very soon after release (f*ck you, Ubisoft).
I play with the Wolves of Steel megamod (follow the installation instructions carefully), d3d antilag (must have to avoid annoying mouse lag) and DBSM.
Modded up, I'm having a blast with this. It's basically Silent Hunter 3 with improved graphics and the ability to explore your entire boat from bow to stern. Nice blend of calm sailing, nail biting tension when engaged by enemy destroyers and genuine satisfaction when you pull off a perfect torpedo shot.
Sad the devs were never given enough time to fully realise their vision - this could have been a truly fantastic simulation.
As it stands, with mods, it's pretty damn good.

Great Game, One big issue. Reinstalled to play it, Ubisofts Anit-Piracy policys now say I dont own the game. Now I can't play it, can't even rebuy it.