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[25] Best Boat Games 2023 (The ULTIMATE List!)

Are you into boating? Or are you looking for a game that allows you to cruise the open seas? If you are looking for boating games, then keep reading as I have made the ultimate list of boating games regardless of what types of boats you’re into.

Best Boat Games

  1. Sea of Thieves
  2. Subnautica
  3. Raft
  4. World of Warships
  5. Assassin’s Creed IV Black Flag
  6. Salt 2: Shores of Gold
  7. Port Royale 4
  8. Abandon Ship
  9. Atlas
  10. Airships: Conquer The Skies
  11. Ship of Fools
  12. Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts
  13. Fishing: North Atlantic – Enhanced Edition
  14. Fishing: Barents Sea
  15. Ultimate Admiral: Age of Sail
  16. Uboat
  17. Cold Waters
  18. Blazing Sails
  19. Puzzle Pirates
  20. Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
  21. Sid Meier’s Pirates!
  22. From the Depths
  23. Silent Hunter 3
  24. Destroyer: The U-Boat Hunter
  25. Hasbro’s Battleship

Continue below as I go into more details about each of the games listed. I also included a link to Eneba for each of these games so just click the yellow button if you are interested in getting the game for a cheaper price.

1. Sea of Thieves

  • Platforms: Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Windows
  • Price: $35 USD
  • Release Date: March 20, 2018
  • Developer: Rare

Sea of Thieves is a massive multiplayer adventure game that allows you to take to the seas with your friends.

You will sail from island to island collecting treasure in a first person perspective with up to four of your friends on a ship together.

While you sail the seven seas you will interact with other players in the world and can choose to engage in naval battles to see who gets whose loot.

Other players will not be your only threat however, sea monsters also roam the ocean and will wreak havoc on anything in their path. These sea monsters will really give any good crew a run for their money.

The graphics in Sea of Thieves can come off as a bit outdated, but many players find the simplistic graphics refreshing compared to the ultra realistic graphics in many AAA titles today.

2. Subnautica

  • Platforms: PlayStation 4 & 5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Windows, Mac
  • Price: $30 USD
  • Release Date: December 16, 2014
  • Developer: Unknown Worlds Entertainment

Subnautica is a sea exploration adventure survival game where you find yourself in the ocean on an alien planet exploring the dark sea depths in a submarine.

Subnautica offers a compelling single player only experience where you dive the depths of an alien ocean battling different alien predators.

Along with a massive ocean to explore, you will also be tasked with creating an underwater habitat to call home.

As you explore the ocean, more and more clues as to what happened to this ocean planet reveal themselves.

This game can be very alarming for some people, with jump scares in certain situations, but many players will find that these jump scares keep you on your toes as you explore the predator filled ocean.

3. Raft

  • Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Windows, Mac, Linux
  • Price: $20 USD
  • Release Date: May 23, 2018
  • Developer: RedBeet Interactive

Raft is a game where you are stranded on a raft (surprise surprise) with your friends and must work  together to overcome the obstacles of the sea.

You start on a raft that becomes your home throughout the game. You are forced to survive with whatever you can find in the ocean and surrounding settlements.

As you progress, you upgrade your raft and that provides different bonuses to help you survive the harsh ocean.

Although the game seems very peaceful at first, there is a man eating shark constantly hunting the raft as well trying to sink players’ rafts to the bottom of the ocean. Not so peaceful now huh?

Although Raft claims that it can be played in a single player setting, players often complain that there is too much to manage for one player and so it is best played with others.

The game offers a massive eight player co-op experience where players find themselves surviving on a raft with seven other friends. It’s a great multiplayer experience for sure.

4. World of Warships

  • Platforms: PlayStation 4 & 5, Xbox One, Windows, Mac
  • Price: Free
  • Release Date: Nov, 15 2017
  • Developer: Wargaming Group Limited

World of Warships is one of the best player versus player (PVP) naval battle games on the market right now. You get to choose between 400 modern ships that are split into different classes.

The game offers many different customization options for your different ships, but many of these features cost real life money to access which can be a huge drawback for many players.

The graphics in this game are not the best, but they are still very competitive with other modern naval combat games.

With the game being out for over five years, many new players will find it very difficult to jump into multiplayer because of the amount of veteran players stomping out noobs in public games.

Not only does the game have a learning curve, it also has features that give players who pay for content an advantage such as better ships. But the game is still fun, even if you don’t pay anything.

5. Assassin’s Creed IV Black Flag

  • Platforms: PlayStation 3 & 4, Xbox 360 & One, Windows, Nintendo Switch, Wii U
  • Price: $20 – $40 USD
  • Release Date: October 29, 2013
  • Developers: Ubisoft

Take control of Captain Edward Kenway and stop at nothing to earn a fortune across the caribbean.

Assassin’s Creed Black Flag puts you in the shoes of an assassin pirate who has full access to a pirate ship to explore the Caribbean.

Captain Kenway engages in different naval battles against the powers that be throughout the Caribbean.

These naval battles are some of the most fun and intense third person pirate battles that you will find. Players can even board an enemy ship and engage in combat.

In these battles, Kenway will use his prowess he learned from being an assassin to eliminate the enemy crew.

This game plays very similarly to all other Assassin’s Creed games before it with the basic controls seen throughout the first three Assassin’s Creed games. 

The graphics are also still very good even 10 years after the initial release of Assassin’s Creed IV Black Flag.

Along with the fantastic graphics, Black Flag also has an incredible amount of sea shanties for you to listen to throughout your journey in the Caribbean.

6. Salt 2: Shores of Gold

  • Platforms: PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox series X/S
  • Price: $20 USD
  • Release Date: July 21, 2022
  • Developers: LavaBoots Studios

Salt 2 takes a different approach to the pirate genre than say, Sea of Thieves, in that it’s completely single player and has no naval combat.

In this game you will sail from island to island going on quests and looting to make different epic items and discover cool places.

No matter how far you adventure, you will never run out of sea to explore in this game as the developers have created a procedurally generated world.

That means the map is ever expanding in whichever direction you choose to explore. The game is meant to be for people who want to get away from the online elements of a game like sea of thieves or raft.

Although the game is a pirate game, you only sail your ship around and explore as there is no naval combat in Salt 2.

However, there is plenty of ocean to explore, and you have tons of options to fully customize your vessel to how you see fit.

As you explore different islands, you will encounter different monsters varying in difficulty that you will have to defeat.

Along with monsters to fight, you will also have access to a pirate town where you can get missions to complete throughout the world.

7. Port Royale 4

  • Platforms: PlayStation 4 & 5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Windows.
  • Price: $40 USD
  • Release Date: September 25 2020
  • Developers: Gaming Mind Studios

Port Royale is a trading ship simulator set in the Caribbean during the 1700’s. In this game you manage your vessel’s course and trade across settlements while avoiding enemy pirates at all costs.

You choose from four different colonial powers including England, France, Spain, and the Netherlands with the goal being to try and control the Caribbean.

You also fight other navy’s ships with up to eight different ships battling each other at once in a turn based ship battle.

Along with riveting ship battles Port Royale also has very fleshed out town building features for players to dive into as well, creating intricate trade routes between settlements to maximize profits and productivity.

8. Abandon Ship

  • Platforms: Windows, Linux, Mac
  • Price: $25 USD
  • Release Date: February 21, 2018
  • Developers: Fireblade Software

Abandon Ship is a tactical pirate era ship simulator where you take command of a vessel as the captain of a cut throat crew.

Throughout the world of Abandon Ship you engage with humans and monsters on the ocean throughout many different game modes such as campaign and free mode.

Abandon ship is a very brutal game where you find yourself escaping your ship on a lifeboat to start anew after a defeat.

This means that your crew will all die when defeated and any experience they had will be lost upon defeat. But the game is never over, hence where the game gets the name “Abandon Ship”.

The game offers unique missions that will affect the outcome of the world drastically so you have to choose wisely.

The graphics are supposed to resemble an oil painting of the 1700’s, which is a very unique approach that many players appreciate.

9. Atlas

  • Platforms: Xbox One, Windows
  • Price: $30 USD
  • Release Date: Dec 22, 2018
  • Developers: Grapeshot Games

Atlas is a player versus player (PVP) survival pirate game where you must fight for survival in a pirate themed world against other players and the elements.

In this game you craft items from materials found on islands scattered around the ocean, eventually saving up enough materials to build a ship.

You also band together in what is called companies to lay stakes to land and build pirate bases together with others to help survive the cruel world of Atlas.

Many players will be turned off by this game when they hear player versus player, but that’s why Grapeshot Games decided to offer a player versus environment (PVE) mode as well for more casual players.

One of the biggest issues with this game is the graphics, but if you can get past that, this game can be a lot of fun.

10. Airships: Conquer The Skies

  • Platforms: Windows, Linux, Mac
  • Price: $25 USD
  • Release Date: Aug 16, 2018
  • Developers: David Stark

In Airships Conquer The Skies, you control a sky ship (yes, an actual flying ship) in a steampunk themed world. You then manage your sky ship making sure your sky ship design will fit your ships needs well. 

In this game, you will enjoy a highly detailed campaign mode that will leave you immersed in the game for hours as you battle and destroy other ships.

Once you feel like you need a more difficult opponent you can take your skills online and battle against real people.

The 2d graphics of Airships is one of the only drawbacks, but surprisingly some people actually enjoy the 2d graphics that this game offers.

11. Ship of Fools

  • Platforms: PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, Microsoft Windows, Xbox Series X/S
  • Price: $15 USD
  • Release Date: Nov 22, 2022
  • Developers: Fika Productions

Ship of Fools is a cooperative roguelite where you set sail with your friends to battle sea monsters in hope to save the world. You will chart your route through the seas fighting monsters and collecting over 100 plus items throughout the sea.

Although co-op is not mandatory, you will find the game much more enjoyable with a friend as Ship of Fools is heavily geared towards a co-op experience. The graphics in this roguelite are very bright and vibrant and overall very well done.

12. Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts

  • Platforms: Windows
  • Price: $35 USD
  • Release Date: Dec 10, 2021
  • Developers: Game-Labs

Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts is for the player that wants to design a naval warship, from the top to the bottom, and fight against other warships.

In this game you can design a warship in the quick play mode titled, “Naval Academy”. These designs can be things like small torpedo boats or enormous war ships.

Besides the quick play mode, this game also offers a campaign mode for those looking for a more fleshed out version of the game.

Players get to choose a country from the time period of their choosing and fight over a global scale on a complete world map of the time.

13. Fishing: North Atlantic – Enhanced Edition

  • Platforms: Playstation 4 & 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Windows
  • Price: $35 USD
  • Release Date: October 16 2020
  • Developers: Misc Games AS

In this game you are in control of a fishing vessel in Nova Scotia and manage all operations related to this fishing expedition. It really is a super realistic commercial fishing simulator.

The North Atlantic Sea is a lot colder in real life than in this fishing simulator, but this game still leaves players feeling immersed in the icy environments of the North Atlantic without the sub freezing temperatures sailors face in real life there.

The game offers different ways for you to catch your fish (harpoon, net, line, etc.) and different ways to sell your fish at the market.

It also has customizable boats, a large variety of fish species, and much much more. This game is a really in-depth and really fun fishing simulator.

14. Fishing: Barents Sea

  • Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Windows
  • Price: $25 USD
  • Release Date: February 7, 2018
  • Developers: Misc Games

Brents Sea is the predecessor to North Atlantic Fishing where you once again take control of a commercial fishing operation, this time in the Barents Sea.

Although not as detailed as North Atlantic Fishing, the game is still considered one of the best fishing games of all time.

The main difference between the two games is that this one takes place in the Barents Sea (near Scandinavia) whereas the newest version takes place in the North Atlantic (near Canada).

This means that the fish you encounter and the weather you will face will be different. Although this game may not be the latest version, it is still fun and still has something to offer for those into boats and fishing.

15. Ultimate Admiral: Age of Sail

  • Platforms: Windows
  • Price: $30 USD
  • Release Date: April 7, 2021
  • Developers: Game-Labs

Ultimate Admiral Age of Sail takes you back to the age of sail and cannon ships as you seek control of the new world. The game offers a highly realistic simulation of naval and land combat from the 1700’s.

In this game you can aim your weapons, capsize your ship (or that of your enemy), customize your ship to your liking, and much more.

The game has a huge learning curve, but for those willing to stick it out, it’s actually a really fun ship fighting game.

16. Uboat

  • Platforms: Windows, Mac
  • Price: $30 USD
  • Release Date: April 30, 2019
  • Developers: Deep Water Studio

Uboat is a real time strategy game where you manage a submarine crew in the German navy. In this game you will receive a number of different assignments at the Kriegsmarine headquarters that vary in difficulty that you will have to complete.

Upon completion of the assignments, you will be awarded a budget to spend on upgrading your ship parts to compete with the allies technological prowess.

This is a true sub simulator, and even the smallest details or mishaps can affect the outcome of a mission. Although this game may be the best U boat simulator on the market right now, it does not come without its own flaws.

Many players complain about clunky crew animations cutting through parts of the sub, which breaks immersion in the game.

Along with clunky visual animations, the voice over cues can also be seen as very loud and overpowering while playing.

But if you are interested in a cool submarine type game, then this one is worth a look.

17. Cold Waters

  • Platforms: Windows, Mac
  • Price: $40 USD
  • Release Date: July 5, 2017
  • Developers: Killerfish Games

Cold Waters is another submarine simulator much like Uboat, but Cold Waters takes place during a war torn Cold War era.

The game will task you with controlling the North Atlantic Ocean above Russia and England in a war torn 1988 alternate universe where the Cold War turned into World War Three.

In this game you will fight a wide arsenal of soviet ships to stop a nuclear war from breaking out. You will also take on various missions and the success, or failure, of these missions determines the storyline of the game.

So different missions and different success rates can change the outcome of the game in a major way.

As far as gameplay goes, Cold Waters is much more arcadey (I made that word up) than say Uboat, for the fact that you control your sub from a third person view.

For example, when you fire a torpedo, you control the torpedo giving the game a much more arcade feeling than some fans of the sub simulator genre will appreciate.

This third person view does give the game an arcadey feel, but that arcade feeling can be enjoyable for some players.

18. Blazing Sails

  • Platforms: Windows
  • Price: $20 USD
  • Release Date: September 9, 2020
  • Developers: Get Up Games

Blazing Sails feels, for better or worse, like a clone of Sea of Thieves. However, Blazing Sails creates a much more fast paced player versus player (PVE) environment than that of Sea of Thieves.

Instead of an open world adventure, this game is more akin to a pirate themed battle royale.

That means you will face off with your teammates against other players in an arena type ocean area where you battle until one pirate crew remains!

Just like other battle royales, you scour the arena in hopes of finding upgrades for your ship or your pirate.

Of course Blazing Sails also offers highly customizable character skins and ship components allowing you to find a style that you like.

The only drawback to this game is that it just came out recently which means the player base fluctuates.

Sometimes it can be hard to find a game or there will only be one game going on at a time, but as time passes the game should find more publicity and gain more players.

19. Puzzle Pirates

  • Platforms: Windows, Mac, Linux
  • Price: Free
  • Release Date: December 8, 2003
  • Developers: Gre havens, Three Rings Design

Puzzle Pirates is a very unique top down game where you complete puzzles and sail the high seas with a pirate crew.

Each task on the ship is divided by puzzles that a real life player will have to solve in order for the ship to sail properly.

For instance, the captain of the ship will play the steering puzzle while a regular crew member may just play the sailing puzzle or carpentry puzzle.

How well the player does in solving their puzzle will determine the performance of the ship. For example, if a player starts “botching” the sailing mini game, the ship will lose significant speed.

Or if the captain starts doing really well with navigation puzzle then he might find a faster route to the destination than what was previously expected.

Along the high seas your ship also engages with other pirate ships doing the same thing. You can even face off in a sword-fighting puzzle in order to see who wins the other ship’s loot.

Whoever wins the sword-fight will split the other ships’ loot between all the crew members equally giving everyone a nice cut of gold.

When the player doesn’t find themselves sailing the seven seas with a pirate crew they can enjoy spending their winnings at the bar.

The bar offers many different puzzles and games as well that the player can bet on such as poker, spades, or brawling.

The biggest drawback of this game is the fact that to obtain the proper equipment to captain a ship of your own you will probably have to spend money. It’s very difficult without doing so.

That means if a player is tired of being a crew member, and wants to take the step to becoming a captain of their own ship, then the player would have to spend a considerable amount of real life money to access those features.

20. Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

  • Platforms: GameCube, Wii U
  • Price: $10- $300 USD
  • Release Date: December 13, 2002
  • Developers: Nintendo

Unlike most Legend of Zelda games that are set on mostly land, Wind Waker takes a bold approach and makes the maps a series of islands that Link sails between in his search to defeat Ganon.

Link takes board of a talking ship named the King of Red Lions, in which Link sails the ocean in search for his sister who was taken by Ganon.

Link controls the boat itself with a wind waker which does exactly what it says and wakes the wind in order for the boat to be controlled.

Along with sailing a massive ocean, you will also be set against many different puzzles to complete throughout the world.

As you progress through the story you will gain access to different items that give Link new abilities, such as a grappling hook that allows Link to access areas that were previously inaccessible.

Along with the main story, there are also many different side quests and mini objectives for you to dive into as well.

This game came out over 20 years ago and is still better than many games that come out today! The only issue with this game is the fact that it is so hard to come across!

At this point the game has turned into a collectors item that can be worth over $100 USD easily.  

21. Sid Meier’s Pirates!

  • Platforms: iOS, PSP, Windows, MAC, Xbox, Xbox 360, Wii
  • Price: $10 – $40 USD
  • Release Date: November 22, 2004
  • Developers: Firaxis Games

Sid Meier’s Pirates is quite possibly the best classic pirate game from the early 2000’s. In this game you sail the Caribbean on a pirate themed hunt for gold and respect.

You’ll find many different pirate activities to participate in such as raiding villages, courting ladies, or digging for buried treasure.

Terrorizing the Carribean has never felt as good as it did fifteen years ago, but this timeless classic still compares favorably to many pirate games today.

The only drawback Pirates really has is outdated graphics; however, the graphics are actually pretty impressive for 2005 given what technology was available for the developers at the time.

Hopefully Sid Meier will soon revive this classic with a more modern version or remake, but until that happens we will have to make due with the outdated graphics and clunky combat.

22. From the Depths

  • Platforms: Windows, Linux, Mac
  • Price: $25 USD
  • Release Date: August 7, 2014
  • Developers: Brilliants Skies Ltd.

From the Depths is a creative take on the naval combat genre where you build your own boats and then battle other boats on the ocean.

In this game, you have access to a set of simple AI tools that help you construct the combat boat of your dreams. Everything on the boat will be fully customizable, even things like the cannons and weapons.

You can choose to play single player, campaign mode, or take your boats to an online co-op mode where you can battle your friends.

The graphics are very simplistic and blocky, almost like playing with Legos, but if the graphics don’t bother you then this game can be great.

However, if you are looking for a game with good graphics, then you may want to look elsewhere.

23. Silent Hunter 3

  • Platforms: Windows
  • Price: $10 USD
  • Release Date: March 15, 2005
  • Developers: Ubisoft

If it were not for the outdated graphics of Silent Hunter 3, this game would have landed way above Uboat and Cold Waters.

Many fans of the submarine simulation games still prefer Silent Hunter 3 over the newer sub games for the fact that it just feels more fun and well put together.

Like its competitor Uboat, Silent Hunter 3 has players take control of a German sub in world war two. Players will be tasked with destroying convoys, destroyers, or entire task forces throughout the North Atlantic Sea.

The game offers two different campaign modes to play, a historically accurate version, or a dynamic version where the player can affect the outcome of the war.

One neat fact: In creating this game, Ubisoft hired an old German sub commander to be the technical advisor for this game. This is why despite its age / graphics, the game is still considered very detailed.

24. Destroyer: The U-Boat Hunter

  • Platforms: Windows
  • Price: $30 USD
  • Release Date: September 28, 2022
  • Developers: Iron Wolf Studio

Unlike Uboat and Cold Waters, in this game you command a Destroyer of submarines instead of commanding the submarine itself.

The graphics in U-Boat Hunter are fantastic which can prove quite taxing for some systems if played on regular settings.

In this game you will be tasked with protecting allied convoys from German U-Boats in the North Atlantic Sea during World War II.

There is a major learning curve to this game, so don’t get frustrated if you don’t master it right away. But those who do master it seem to actually really enjoy it.

25. Hasbro’s Battleship

  • Platforms: Windows
  • Price: $10 USD
  • Release Date: Aug 14, 2018
  • Developers: Marmalade Game Studio Ltd

This is the classic battleship we all know and love from our childhood, it’s just that now it’s on PC. This game really is just a video game version of the classic game only with cool animations and graphics.

However, besides the traditional classic mode, this game also offers a game mode called “Commanders Mode” where each commander has special abilities that assist you as you play the game.

If you are looking for a fun, classic game, this is a great option.

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👋 Hey There, I'm Eric!

Since 2018, I've been making streams come true.

I like gaming, streaming and watching other people stream. I created this website to help streamers, viewers, and gamers answer questions they have regarding live streaming, gaming, and PCs. I am a Twitch affiliate and currently stream on Twitch 3 days a week. I also have a Youtube channel where I make videos about streaming. I hope you find my content helpful. Feel free to stop by one of my streams to say hi.