I'm not sure what all the hype is about over this game, because the experience I received is vastly different than that of the stated experience. The game is mainly frustrating and lacks any real depth to keep a player interested. Additionally, there is an extra layer of artificial difficulty thrown in that further frustrates the player. Let's look at the pros and cons first:

Pros
- You are in command of the entire battle and have big picture control
- Lots of stations that are mostly realistic and require some usage to get good at
- Lets bomb the hell out of this u-boat!

Cons
- Lacking realisim
- Subs can do about 20 knots underwater in this game
- Subs turn on a dime and at the perfect moment to throw off your depth charge attack
- Direct hits resulting in oil slick or debris does not mean a kill and the sub continues the hunt
- Heavily damaged or suppressed subs will continue their assault and disregard their own lives
- A perfect depth charge run is unrewarded with a kill
- Periscopes sighted on the surface do not accurately indicate the location of the sub and it is often 200-300ft away from where the periscope is spotted
- Surface sightings in clear days can be observed popping in and out of existence despite looking directly at their location
- Subs require multiple successful runs to sink them, despite major damage being caused
- Depth charge attacks do nothing to throw off an attack. Once the last charge explodes, the sub immediately returns to periscope depth despite you lining up for another run
- The AI has no due regard for their own lives, and will take repeated risks that result in being punished by successful depth charge attacks. I guess I'd be an arrogant Captain too if I knew that depth charges only tickled me. Oh right, they are suppose to hurt.

The biggest downfall of this game is how it plays too much like a machine. Subs have no regard for their own lives and will make repeated risky attacks despite being actively hunted by a destroyer that is accurately dropping depth charges on them. Furthermore, they make torpedo calculations in a ridiculously short amount of time. It would seem like the coding gives certain bonuses to uboats in certain positions. If they take up a position along the flank, they will fire off at least 2 highly accurate torpedos within seconds at periscope depth. On that subject, why can I not order the convoy to start zig zagging? Do they want to get torpedod? That isn't even realistic to how the battle of the Atlantic went.

Let me give an example. I played a mission with 9 convoy ships, 2 destroyers and 3 u-boats. The first contact came up ahead of the convoy, which I charged at and begun firing the 5 inch guns at. Once submerged, I began making depth charge runs which accurately fell onto the sub, one resulting in oil slick. Despite taking damage, the u-boat would rise to periscope depth to gain torpedo calculations on the convoy with only seconds before another depth charge attack. They would then laugh at me and just re-submerge and execute a snap turn at the last second that was tighter than what my destroyer could turn. They also seem to cheat and know there is a spot between shallow and medium depth charges, and linger there to avoid damage. Not realistic to real u-boats at all. Put yourself in the perspective of the u-boat where all you have to know your outside world when submerged is a hydrophone operator that has to guess how close the ship is and listen for depth charge splashes. If the u-boat was shallow, by the time they heard the depth charge splashes it was too late to make any corrections... Which is exactly the situation u-boats manage to successfully evade here, depth charges at shallow depth. I digress, despite being damaged the attack continued until the sub was mostly behind the convoy and off to its right flank at 2000 yards away. The sub then rose to periscope depth and within 5 seconds made perfect torpedo calculations on 3 torpedos and sunk 3 ships.. From 2000 yards away at a 70 degree angle to the stern of the ships. I'm suppose to believe that while heavily damaged and in a very inopportune position the skipper made 3 highly accurate torpedo shots from a terrible position within seconds and from too far away? You'll find this is a repeated scenario you face in this game. Fearless u-boats that treat you like an annoyance instead of a threat and continue their attack at all costs.

Your fellow escorts are also quite useless unless you give them orders. If a ship is in a screening position it will allow a uboat to duck past and attack the convoy. Even if the uboat is surfaced and the escort has guns, it will do nothing until ordered. Even more laughable is that the tutorial talks about subs at the rear of the convoy being pretty much useless as they have to surface to continue the attack... Which they do and then charge headlong past destroyers while on the surface. Sounds like a good way to get killed to me, but again when 5 inch shells apparently only tickle you, I'd do the same thing.

Top this all off with how frustrating it becomes when you take repeated perfect depth charge runs at a u-boat and fail to score any real damage. Not that perfect depth charge runs are that common because the u-boats are so unrealistically fast and manoeuvrable underwater that most of the time you won't even be close. Even more, when you DO score hits and get oil slick or debris it doesn't seem to do anything. The u-boat requires 2-3 successful depth charge runs to sink and will continue their attack despite being heavily damaged. This is not realistic to the era at all, not even in the slightest. Even a couple of depth charge runs held enough of a morale impact to ward off a u-boat crew, not cause them to keep taking unnecessary risks.

Then there are the annoying and repetitive radio calls. While I do enjoy hearing updated reports on contacts and my orders repeated (very useful), I do not enjoy the collision reports. Lookouts shout over their mic about ships on a collision course while the ship honks at you, even if they are not on an imminent collision course. What's worse is that each lookout will report this in turn as they sight the ship. Say you are passing a ship on your left and you are moving parallel to it. First, your bow lookout will report the collision report, then the port lookout, and finally the stern lookout. Then, they will continue to spam you with collision reports over and over, blocking important radio traffic such as range and bearings to the sub that you are trying to line up for a run. I mean, are these guys not listening to the radio that they are yelling into and know that a collision report has already been made? Can I not shout in the mic for the dude to shut up and stop hogging radio traffic? Are the lookouts really this useless? Heck, they don't often even report bearings to targets, they just shout loudly that they see a periscope. When they do report bearings, they are incredibly inaccurate despite using a spotting scope THAT GIVES bearings.

Lastly, the game is simply one combat run to the next. Campaign is not announced to have any open maps, ports or sailing. You simply go from one engagement to the next and repeat the same crap combat action.

I really wanted to like this game because it gives a unique experience from the other side of the all too common u-boat games where you play as the sub. I had doubts watching videos about it, and unfortunately my doubts turned out to be confirmed. The devs are also asking for a ridiculous amount of money for this game while it is still in early access. I played it for long enough to give it a good test, but unfortunately that puts me beyond the refund time limit, so I'm stuck with it. I would avoid this game for the time being and perhaps it will get better with time. If they fixed the unrealistically fast, manoeuvrable, fearless, and tanky subs, then the game might not be half bad.

Overall, I can recommend the game to simulation players with a keen interest in ASW and submarine warfare who like a "bathtub-simulation" (as Sid Meier would have called it) with instant immersion into action-rich, and time limited gameplay. In my opinion, there is a lot of potential for improvements in regards to realism, of course - as I will point out below.

"Destroyer" has some very positive and realistic aspects that set it apart from other earlier efforts to simulate ASW that I would list as follows:

1.) It simulates ASW action as a series of depth charge attacks (and some artillery fire) with a high failure probability and accumulative damage done to the U-boat – just as was the usual case in reality.

2.) Preventing a U-boat from attacking your merchant vessels is more important to eventual success than its destruction.

3.) Multitasking is key: i.e. place your assets where they are most effective, ship-to-ship cooperation (when possible) is more efficient than lone hunting, keeping track of multiple threats is vital - and provides a constant drive to gameplay. Another gripping aspect of multitasking is having to switch between different stations, radar, sonar, bridge etc, which are nicely rendered and make the game immersive and visually pleasing.

4.) Ice fields: These put you in a tight spot indeed, combining endless navigation issues with search & destroy operations. Kudos to the programmers! I can only imagine how difficult it must have been to simulate ship navigation and torpedo attacks through the maze of an ice field.

However, there are some issues (apart from the usual coding bugs) that require an effort (and some research) to improve gameplay and make it even more realistic and engaging:

1.) Generally speaking, the Fletcher class was a versatile combat platform, a "Jack Of All Trades" (but a «Master Of None») with ASW being just one of the many rolls it had to fulfill. The Fletcher could just as well conduct fire missions, provide an AA screen, conduct torpedo attacks or serve as a radar picket vectoring combat air patrols against incoming attacks. This game clearly does not aim at truthfully simulating the Fletcher class destroyer but rather simulates ASW warfare against wolf-packs in the Atlantic. Thus the Fletcher serves as a "typical" platform only – one people easily relate to after watching "Greyhound". To add a ballistics computer, AA fire control, torpedo data computer and an air control center would expand the game way beyond its current scope.

2.) Ship motion dynamics are clearly not realistically simulated: A 2500 ton (at full loadout) vessel has different motion characteristics with more momentum driven acceleration/deceleration and varying turning radiuses in function of speed. In this regard the game is way off! Another aspect is speed control: A commander could order rotations for any speed. It would be nice for gameplay to be able to order a speed of, say, 4 knots to casually trail and track a U-boat.

3. a) Realistic sonar: While sonar stops working altogether at high speeds in gameplay - which is totally realistic - sonar sensitivity gradually improves with lower speeds. In gameplay, I could not note any difference in sonar performance cruising at 8 or at 24 knots. In reality, self-noise levels (from sonar dome or hull vibrations, wave action etc.) increase the faster a ship goes, thus echoes reflected from the U-boat would eventually be drowned out by ambient noise – which usually occured at speeds above 16–18 knots.
Sonar ranges of 3000+ yards with WW2 ASDIC sets were an absolute exception, and could only be achieved under very ideal circumstances (sonar conditions). In WW2, 1000 to 1500 yards (or often much less) were the norm.

3. b) Realistic sonar conditions: In gameplay, I could not note any effect of sea state, wind, thermocline, biologics etc. Sonar conditions seem to be a constant rather than an ever changing variable. To take these variables into account, however, could add to the gaming experience.

3. c) The "baffles": In gameplay, sonar can listen "around" nearly a full 360 degrees (or so it seems to me until proven otherwise). In reality, the search arc aft, approx. 140 degrees "red" to 140 degrees "green" was drowned in ship self-noise (radiated from hull, turbines, propellers, bow and stern wave action etc.). This ought to be at least simulated somehow in function of ship speed and the sonar operator ought to give off a report, if the requested search window includes the "baffles".

3. d) The "masking" effect of depth charge explosions: This may be a bit of hair-splitting, but in real life the gaseous explosion products of a depth charge produce bubbles that rise in function to their size. While large bubbles rise to the surface in seconds, the small ones ascend very slowly and produce a sonar reflecting champagne "pillar" causing false echoes for several minutes - similar to the gas-producing "Pillenwerfer" containers U-boats used to confuse Allied sonar.

4.) Endless ammo: Although Allied escort ships were usually stocked with lavish amounts of depth charges – often 60+ ash cans – supply was not unlimited. To factor-in ammo consumption would add a realistic twist to gameplay.

It's a really cool concept, but the game is too underdeveloped, even for early access. The nail in the coffin for me was how quickly the uboat moves.

The most egregious example was when I was doing 25kts with the rudder hard over to port and the uboat was able to run circles around me 600yds out. I did some rough math and I came up with a minimum speed of 66kts for the uboat to perform such an action, which it did while submerged. Until something as immersion breaking as that is fixed, it's a no-go for me.

I'm also worried about the future of the game because there are multiple games in simultaneous development by the same studio.

NERD STUFF
950yds (I Googled Fletcher DD tactical diameter, I did not measure in game) = 2984yd circumference
2984yds / 25kts = 212 seconds

950yds diameter + 600yd range to contact = 2150yd uboat diameter
2150yd diameter = 6754yd circumference

6754yds / 212s = 56kts to just keep pace
6754yds / 180s because it was getting away from me = 66kts WHILE SUBMERGED

This is a totally different type of tactical submarine game. Hunting the submarines can at times be tense, the excitement when closing in on a target only to overshoot or the sub turns or changes depth is at times frustrating. Do not forget to check where the cargo fleet is in relation to your ship if they collide game over.
The only problem I have is because I am in my 70's my eye sight is not so good and I have difficulty seeing the escort ships or aeroplane icons on the tactical map because the icons are so small. If the devs read this you have a great game but the above icons if possible could be a little larger.
The game just gets better first off the uboats have THE AUDACITY to torpedo you if you keep on a straight course or stop. Now you have to negotiate icebergs. These also give the uboats a strategic means to hide behind or under the icebergs making radar difficult to spot them.

I normally put many more hours on a game before I leave a review, but I feel like after sinking almost 8 hours into a single play session on my first launch of the game it was safe to say I can go ahead and leave this review. I dabbled in both quick battles and the campaign before deciding to come here.

Pros:
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- INSANELY Strategic. If you are looking for something that will test your ability to think "chess instead of checkers," This is the exact type of game you are looking for. This game will keep you on your toes, and right when you think you have a u-boat pinned down and no where to go, they will show you that you don't.
- Extensive in your role as Captain. There is A LOT going on on the ship, and you not only have to navigate all of the features your ship has to offer, you also have to coordinate with all of the other ships in your fleet To ensure that your convoy stays afloat.
- Swap between different crew members to perform different tasks. From plotting down projected azimuths to get an idea which direction a u-boat is headed using the DRT table, as well as the OSC Projector (Own Ships Course Enemy Bearing Projector), to analyzing the radar, to manning the destroyer artillary turrets, etc.
- The game is very challenging but not overwhelmingly difficult. If you like things that are not easy to do, but not so over the top they are impossible, this is right up your alley.
- Taking down a target feels extremely satisfying. Because it's not easy to sink a U-boat, when you actually do, you actually feel like you accomplished something.
- Gives you a new-found appreciation for the guys that actually did this stuff during World War II. Nothing quite makes you appreciate someone's position until you get your own feet wet in whatever they are doing, and this is a great way to experience all of the moving parts that go into naval battle without actually joining the navy and going to war. It will make you strongly appreciate the difficulty in what the men who oversaw these ships had to do to successfully win fights at sea.
- The enemy AI algorithm is extremely good. I was surprised at this one. The AI (the U-Boats) are pretty quick witted about their situations and tactics. Even to the point that one U-Boat can lure you away from your convoy on a wild goose chase to allow another U-boat to sneak in unbothered and sink the convoy boats. It's very refreshing to see an AI-based game that 'thinks' on the same scale that a real player would. Pulling the same cunning strategies and pulling a the coat over your eyes. They do everything from set ambush traps, to even changing their depth depending on how pressured they feel to keep you from sinking them. Im impressed.

Cons
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- The graphics aren't the best, and the animations are very bad as well, but for a very small indie dev team, the game gets the job done.
- There isn't much difference between the campaign and the standard battle modes other than the campaign features task specific missions and cut scenes with bad animation sequences. So, yeah there is a story, but ultimately your goal in the campaign is the exact same as your goal in quick battles... to sink U-boats. Im putting this as a con because it pretty much renders the Campaign a completely useless addition to the game unless it's just something you really want to do.
- The Tutorials Pace is too slow for the events that take place. This is a bit hard to explain, but WHILE you are reading the dialogue boxes, the enemy u-boats are still changing positions and the noise in the background can be a bit overwhelming during the tutorial. Because, while you are trying to learn, the crewmates on the ship are cramming a bunch of information down your eardrums about the enemy location and position switches that you aren't even ready to encounter yet. IMO this could be improved by pausing the game as a dialogue box appears, and having it unpause after you click the confirmation button on said dialogue boxes.
- The Voicelines in the campaign are done 99.99999% by an AI text to speech generator. There are a couple of voice actors, but the vast majority of the crew talk like robots, and it pulls a massive amount out of the possible immersion in this game by having this happen.
- The lingo isn't accurate. I don't know why the developers didn't spend more time with people that are actually in the navy to work out what should be said in certain moments, but a lot of the Naval lingo used by the crew is out of place and doesn't belong. It's not what a real seaman would say, and it sounds completely disingenuous.

Neutrals (Some may see these as pros, while others see them as cons)
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- It's not an easy game. This isn't a game for a casual game player who wants to hop in and sink some stuff. The game requires methodical thinking, extreme strategy, and patience. Just learning the ships tools alone can be a LONG learning curve for some people. Even after you get a decent understanding on how the equipment and tools are used, it's still extremely hard to actually sink a U-Boat. In fact, it's so hard, that not only has less than 10% of the people who owned this game even successfully sank a U-Boat, Less than 10% have even been able to hit a U-Boat with their depth charges... This is not easy. It's designed to be something you want to dedicate yourself to learning how to conquer.
- The game is not time-friendly. I personally don't mind this part, as I'm forced retired (disabled) and I primarily fill up all of my free time playing games, this could be a huge draw back for someone that's looking for a game that they can hop into and spend a short amount of time on and then hop back out. This isn't your game if you are this type of player. AT A MINIMUM, you will spend no less than 1 hour in a battle. This morning I had one going for about 3 hours. This game is not friendly to the clock at all.

im going to give this game some tough love. It is good, its intense when chasing a uboat you cant see with the music and the atmosphere it creates. I have several issues with the game however that prevents me from playing it more.

The uboats for one are way way too aggressive. IRL if a uboat even suffered small damage they would not even think to go back up to periscope depth for another attack, they would immediately try to escape. Uboats here dont do this, they can be heavily damaged and still every single one of them will attempt another attack. The game tries to balance this by making them always detectable with sonar even if they are deep and silent (which should make it harder at least) and the game also gives them much more health then is realistic. These are both hacks to this problem and make the game less fun. A uboat should be hard to detect with the sonar just like IRL not easy and they need to not be depth charge sponges. The balance for sure needs tweaking.

Next the flower class escort that helps you is bugged or something. It is incredibly slow to reach the target you give it making it sometimes useless.

I played the demo of this game and I was expecting many changes in the final release and while the release is better, it is not any deeper then the demo, the demo was indeed the final game from 2 years ago and I would have wanted to see more features e.g. walking around the ship, walking in ports (like the uboat game from deep water), a carreer that allows you to actually move freely in the atlantic not just pop you in whenever there is a battle etc.

The encounters themselves are great but in small doses for the issues i mentioned above. I can play uboat or silent hunter for hours due to their depth but this is more shallow and has therefore prevented me from playing it more :(

The game is early access so I consider this a suggestion that could make the game better not a criticism. First the game is very good looking and feels authentic for the period. Some things that need addressing are:

Submarines AI is doing dumb unrealistic things like constantly surfacing knowing I'm up there looking for them. A U-boat coming up with a destroyer close by hunting them would be suicide. After the initial contact my target repeatedly surfaced giving my 5"/38s lots of target practice. Which it seems they need.

I found my self zig zaging on stretches to the submarine especially if a periscope was reported just in case they decided to take a shot at me. It didn't happen too often in real life but was a threat none the less. However the uboats I was attacking never tried to. I don't know if they will in this game but they should occasionally try it to keep the hunter on it's toes. The U-boats I attacked constantly put their periscope up. That was a easy give away as to their position in real life. If they aren't attacking it should stay down.

Another suggestion is that there is no damage control station at all which suggest the Uboats wont attack the destroyer. Although a torpedo was most likely fatal to such a small ship.

I'm not sure how many patterns a Fletcher class could lay down but I'm sure I exceeded what ever it is. A realistic limit on depth charges would be a nice option.

Finally to give the game legs, progression in tech as the war progresses would be great. Better sonar and hedge hogs for the destroyer. Decoys and snorkels for the Uboats.

OK update. They will torpedo you. I assume he was aiming at me since I had driven him away from to convoy. I totally let my guard down.

ABANDONED

Step 1. Install
Step 2. Play for the first two missions
Step 3. Go to bed
Step 4. Wake up and watch Greyhound
Step 5. Work in the morning sleepy, but excited to hunt u-boats
Step 6. Get off work and ignore family responsibilities to play
Step 7. Listen to Greyhound in the background while playing the game.

I was sold the moment I heard "Set material condition zebra" during the intro cut scene. That kind of attention to authentic detail impressed this veteran of the USN.

The game itself is akin to Wolfpack, but from the other side. Less calculation involved, more intuition, but learning the different instruments is fascination. They really went to a lot of trouble to simulate old analog systems. It shows you just how tough it is to hunt a sub in WW2. Everything works as advertised with a few minor gotchas that aren't bugs as much as clunky functionality. Telling the DRT to use the compass instead of the pencil, for example. Or trying to draw a line from my boat to the enemy. But these are truly minor blemishes in what is otherwise clearly a labor of love. If you are a fan of naval combat and authenticity at the tactical level, this one is for you.