Old Gamers Never Die: Even in Early Access, 'Sea Power' is an Impressive Naval Warfare Sim

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 From the lead designer of Cold Waters, Sea Power lets you control NATO and Warsaw Pact forces in modern naval conflict campaigns. Use your advanced naval weaponry and sensors to respect rules of engagement and defeat the enemy forces in a tense fight for initiative and air/naval supremacy. – Promotional blurb on Steam, MicroProse/Triassic Games

Well, it's been nearly a week since MicroProse released Triassic Games' Sea Power: Naval Combat in the Missile Age, and I'm impressed by how much attention to detail the game's developers lavished on this sim. 

If I had to describe the game succinctly, I'd say it's a more muscular and visually appealing version of both Harpoon Classic '97 and Fleet Command, with a bit of Cold Waters added for good measure,

 (That latter bit is not a casual observation because, as MicroProse's promo blurb states, the lead designer of Killerfish Games' 2017 submarine sim created Sea Power along with others in his new studio, Triassic Games.) 

I had been waiting for Sea Power since I first saw it mentioned on Steam not long after I bought Cold Waters in the summer of 2020, so for me, this was a Day One purchase, even though the game is incomplete and in "early access."There's no grand campaign (that's scheduled to be added sometime in 2025), so right now we can only play single scenarios and user-created mods; these single encounters are a mix of slightly fictionalized historical engagements and speculative Cold War-turns-hot scenarios straight out of a Tom Clancy technothriller. 

Here's a screenshot from one of the first scenarios I sampled last week. © 2024 Triassic Games/MicroProse

I've only owned my copy of Sea Power for a bit over six days; I've played only two scenarios all the way through. Partly because missions take a long time to play even with time compression, and partly because Sea Power is not simply a shoot 'em up video game like, say, the old 1980s game Polaris. 

As I said earlier, this sim takes the best concepts from Harpoon, Fleet Command, and Cold Waters and blends them into a naval sim that gives players a taste of late 20th Century naval warfare but doesn't require you to attend the U.S. Naval Academy before playing. 

A North Vietnamese MiG-17 Fresco makes a bomb run on a small task group near the coast in the Gulf of Tonkin in the historical mission Dong Hoi. © 2024 Triassic Games/MicroProse


It took me four tries to win a decisive victory in the Dong Hoi scenario, which is based on a real battle that took place in April of 1972 during North Vietnam's Spring Offensive against South Vietnam. The first three attempts were disastrous. I'd sink several enemy torpedo boats and shoot down MiGs that were bombing my small flotilla of U.S. Navy warships. But no matter what I did, enemy planes would blow through my defenses and hit one, sometimes two, of my ships and sink them. 

On the fourth try, I changed my tactics radically by violating the Rules of Engagement (ROE) and being more proactive in my defense. Accordingly, I sank four enemy P6-class torpedo boats, shot down three MiG-17 Frescos, and prevented any damage to my ships from either sea or air attacks. 

A perfect after-action report! © 2024 Triassic Games/MicroProse


The other scenario I've finished is Morvarid, set during the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1989). I played as the commander of an Iranian flotilla of patrol craft plus a few Islamic Iranian Republic Air Force F-4s and F-5s. I "won" that battle, but at what price victory? I lost all three of my naval vessels and at least one F-5, even though I sank all of the Iraqi ships and damaged an enemy oil platform in the Persian Gulf. 

Angel over my shoulder? © 2024 Triassic Games/MicroProse


I've sampled a few other scenarios. Partly to get a feel for how to play them fully later, but primarily to get some cool screen grabs! 

© 2024 Triassic Games/MicroProse

© 2024 Triassic Games/MicroProse

© 2024 Triassic Games/MicroProse




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