Review after nearly 2000 hours of play since September, 2019.

[Colonel Frost]

Wolfpack is a brilliant game with a devoted worldwide following who welcome new players at every level of play.

The game delivers tactical U-Boat combat during the happy time - September 1, 1939, through December 31, 1941 - before all the U-Boat aces were dead. The AI enemy have no surface radar and no hedgehogs. They (currently) have no planes to delay or disrupt your maneuver or attack. Your boat spawns in audio - via hydrophone - or visual contact with an enemy convoy on the date, at the time, in the location, and in the sea conditions of your choosing in a Type VII U-Boat with no mechanical casualties and a full complement of 14 torpedoes, some steam, some electric, with magnetic or impact fuses. You approach the convoy, identify the merchant targets using a near-perfect Janes (ship recognition manual), gather convoy course and speed data, set up the attack on your Torpedo Data Computer (TDC), fire your torpedoes, and then escape while the eels are running if you are not inside the convoy when you initiate your attack. The game will accommodate low and high gyro attacks at short and long ranges. Sea conditions affect torpedo run depths. The AI will spot badly-placed torpedo steam trails. Difficulty settings can limit effective impact angles and general torpedo reliability.

The convoy may zig. If you don’t observe the zig, your torpedoes will likely miss. Often a zig is a subtle turn or speed change or both. If you are spotted by a merchant or a warship, they will attempt to shoot or ram you. The warships will prosecute you vigorously with ASDIC, depth charges, and a knife-edge bow. Counter-counterattack is possible against maybe one of the escorts, but if there are enough, you will garner three. The duration of a counterattack is determined by a game setting, the available ocean depth - more is better - and your ability to break the enemy contact, which is a minor art form.

The game can be soloed, but it is designed for multi-player.

A lobby contains one to four boats. Each boat supports up to five players - captain, helmsman, dive officer, radioman, and navigator. (The upcoming update will add two more - a chief engineer and an electromechanic). The helmsman interfaces with the rudder controls, engine order telegraph, RPM gauges, speedometer, amp meter, and sometimes the Torpedo Data Computer. The radioman operates the radio - which can send and receive in plain text or can use a built in or actual Morse key. There is a rarely-used but operational three-wheel Enigma machine, and a working hydrophone. The pending update will add radios and increase the hydrophone functionality. The dive officer’s station controls forward and aft planes, main ballast tanks, trim tanks, negative tank, bilge, air compressor, inclinometer bubbles, depth and pressure gauges, and, in the pending update, a working Christmas Tree showing the status of pressure hull openings. He has access to the observation periscope.

The navigator has a fully-functioning map table, odometer, speedometer, ocean depth sounding device, etc. He, too, has access to the observation periscope.

The captain has a crew to whom he can issue orders. He can maneuver and fight the boat from the bridge or attack periscope in the conning tower.

There is working 8.8 cm deck gun.

The update will add working diesel engines and electric motors, and the engineers will labor in the engine compartments separate from the rest of the crew, receiving and acknowledging orders through the engine order telegraphs, voice tubes, or telephone intercoms. Getting the diesels to run at peak efficiency is a challenge as each individual cylinder must be tuned and running at the proper exhaust temperature to attain maximum speed if desired by the captain. The electric engines are similarly complex. Failure to operate them properly can blow one or both breaker panels, leaving the boat in partial or total darkness. Switching between the engines and getting them to perform so that the captain can fight the boat will be difficult for inexperienced engineers and for experienced ones in emergencies.

Playing single boat is a challenge for any captain, whether he is solo or with a crew. Playing a division level game - with multiple boats attacking the convoy simultaneously, is an enormous challenge for everyone involved. One error by one player potentially affects every other player.

The learning curve for any particular position is not steep, though the difference between an inexperienced player and an experienced one can often be dramatic. A captain is responsible for his crew’s performance. He must either train his people himself or delegate the training. Sometimes a captain will have only a half hour to forge an ad hoc crew into a team he can trust.

Captains need to understand the tactics, know what orders to give and how and when to give them, what to do themselves and what to delegate, when to take over from someone who is underperforming and when to let him fail. Wolfpack is an actual leadership simulator. When the lobby is full and the convoy is fat, everything needs to come together. The captains need to make that happen in their own private Idahos, connected only simplified radio or Morse communications.

Each mission simulates attacks over three our four successive nights. It all happens in real time. The time compression happens in the spaces between the attacks. That is, where a real life escort might prosecute you for 6 hours, the escorts disengage after only a few minutes. If all the boats have successfully escaped, the convoy resets and can be attacked again as if it were the following night. There is no farby accelerated video. A full mission can be completed in roughly 2.5 to 3.5 hours, depending on the number of times U-Boats get spotted, if at all, and whether the convoy zigs so as to spoil and delay attacks.

Wolfpack is a unique experience - well worth the mid-level price of $35.00. Don’t expect it to go on sale.

WP has an official Discord. The community are welcoming to friendly players and vicious to trolls. Banished trolls post negative comments about the community. If you see negative comments in the reviews, chances are they are the work of disappointed trolls. New players are welcome nearly everywhere. The largest games happen in open lobbies. There are play aids for download. There are historians and engineers who can answer nearly every question. Many can cite from German source material. There are no politics or Nazi nonsense. There are players in every time zone and tools to find them.

The development team is small, but they are committed to delivering a quality product.

Finally, this game is not for gamers who cannot stomach public failure. You will fail before and after you succeed. The game is easy to learn and easy to master, but mastery does not mean perfection. It means striving for perfection mission after mission and only achieving some version of perfection sometimes.

[Aquarius]

Great review for a great game. I can only agree. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

[kimdownunder]

It looks tempting but is way beyond my abilities. I tried it well over a year ago and was hopelessly lost.
I would love it if there was the ability to “join” a crew as a kibitzer - ie only be able to look around and listen but have NO controls to talk, type, or interact with anything on the boat. Being able to do this might encourage me to reload it.

[moyer4487]

Originally posted by kimdownunder (aka Weissman):

It looks tempting but is way beyond my abilities. I tried it well over a year ago and was hopelessly lost.
I would love it if there was the ability to “join” a crew as a kibitzer - ie only be able to look around and listen but have NO controls to talk, type, or interact with anything on the boat. Being able to do this might encourage me to reload it.

i don't know anybody that plays this game so i am stuck playing solo. and like u i have no clue wtf i am doing. i torpedoed a ship in training that was not moving by total accident. i have yet to repeat the process. i can't even torpedo a stationary vessel on purpose that is not even attacking me and has no escort.

[Fox]

I started to play the game with people I knew. but they all stopped playing. You cant let that be a factor tho. you need to find like-minded individuals in the game, play multiplayer, join open lobbies, engage with players in the official discord.

[Colonel Frost]

There is no position on a boat that is difficult to learn. The game can be soloed with or without bots. (With bots it kind of looks like Silent Hunter.} There are plenty of people to teach new players how to play any position. WP Operations Discord https://discord.gg/NhQuzgZXBq has tutors who will meet with new players one on one to go over the equipment related to any role. New players are welcome nearly everywhere.

[Colonel Frost]

I played this game solo for three months before I talked to anyone. Then I met a player who taught me everything I was doing sub-optimally or flat out incorrectly. Then I was able form a small regular crew who are still with me. We run division level (multi-boat) games in open lobbies on Wednesday and Thursday nights.

WP is co-op. The goal is to educate everyone so that anyone can create and deliver excellent content. Public failure happens from time to time. If there were no risk of failure, there would be no challenge.

[SHunter]

I have been playing SHV for number of years and plan on trying this game. And I do have a question, do the magnetic pistol (on torpedoes) work? They never worked on SHV, even modded.

[Konrad Friedrich]

Originally posted by SHunter:

I have been playing SHV for number of years and plan on trying this game. And I do have a question, do the magnetic pistol (on torpedoes) work? They never worked on SHV, even modded.

Yes, the magnetic pistols work.

However, these did not really play a role in the time frame of the game (up to 1941 so far), since they were not allowed to be used in certain phases during that period.
Especially after the very big problems of the torpedoes during the invasion of Norway, the use of magnetic pistols was forbidden and only the impact fuse was used (which also had it's problems).
The design flaws of the torpedoes (faulty depth control) and the magnetic and impact pistols were corrected later.

However - historically accurate or not - players in Wolfpack are free to use these magnetic pistols anyway, at any time. :)
And - very convenient: You can switch off "faulty torpedoes" in the options. ;)

[Colonel Frost]

The magnetic detonators are not as reliable as the contact detonators. I routinely use contacts for merchants and magnetics in the rear tube for escorts.

[TommyGuns]

Originally posted by kimdownunder (aka Weissman):

It looks tempting but is way beyond my abilities. I tried it well over a year ago and was hopelessly lost.
I would love it if there was the ability to “join” a crew as a kibitzer - ie only be able to look around and listen but have NO controls to talk, type, or interact with anything on the boat. Being able to do this might encourage me to reload it.

If you see TommyGuns come on my boat. I have been playing since the release and have the patience to teach you how easy it is. Your unfamiliarity with the equipment is the barrier.
Once you see how simple it is you will be surprised.

[TommyGuns]

Originally posted by SHunter:

I have been playing SHV for number of years and plan on trying this game. And I do have a question, do the magnetic pistol (on torpedoes) work? They never worked on SHV, even modded.

I sink vessels with one torpedo regularly using the magnetic detonator. If the draft is 6 meters set the torpedo depth to 8 and it works (almost) every time. I would say my one shot, one kill rate is 85% using this method.

[Fox]

Originally posted by SHunter:

I have been playing SHV for number of years and plan on trying this game. And I do have a question, do the magnetic pistol (on torpedoes) work? They never worked on SHV, even modded.

The trigger systems seams to be simulated well enough, tho the damage model seams to right now be a placeholder. The bubble does not appear to have such a devastating effect as it is IRL documented to have, so perhaps in the future versions when the developers introduce the new merchant models, they will roll out a more realistic damage model for the merchants.

[SHunter]

Thanks for all your responses, greatly appreciated!