Victory At Sea

About

Victory At Sea is a single player tactical real-time strategy game with warfare and historical themes. It was developed by Evil Twin Artworks and was released on August 8, 2014. It received mostly positive reviews from players.

Engage in epic RTS warfare across three huge campaigns as well as other battle modes. Create your own fleet of ships, pick your side and enter into World War II naval combat on a global scale. Engage in epic real time strategy warfare across the Atlantic, Pacific and Mediterranean. This is naval warfare on a global scale. It is World War II and the age of the dreadnoughts has passed and naval war…

Genres & Tags

Play Modes

Single-Player

Skip User Reviews

74%

Audience ScoreBased on 420 reviews

story10 positive mentions

grinding10 negative mentions

Easy to learn and pick up with a fun and accessible real-time tactical naval combat system.
Wide variety of ships spanning multiple World War II theaters and factions, allowing fleet building and customization.
Active developer support with frequent updates, mod support, and campaigns that provide many hours of gameplay.

Simplistic and arcade-like gameplay lacks depth and historical accuracy, with limited strategic or simulation elements.
Poor AI and formation control, awkward UI and camera controls make commanding large fleets frustrating.
Visual and audio presentation are dated with low-quality ship models, repetitive sound effects, and frequent bugs including crashes and save issues.

story
89 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
11%
86%
3%
The story aspect is minimal and serves mainly as a loose framework for the sandbox-style campaigns, with missions often feeling repetitive, unbalanced, or sometimes impossible to complete. While the game offers a variety of mission types and some narrative flavor tied to World War II naval combat, many players find the mission design lacks depth and fails to provide a compelling or coherent story experience. Overall, the story is subordinate to gameplay, with more emphasis on fleet management and tactical battles than on narrative development.
- “Victory at Sea tells the story of World War II at sea.”
- “The campaigns are sandbox-style with missions (escort, attack, rescue) and you can buy ships, customize your fleet, and gain experience (just for medals, no skill tree).”
- “With three sandbox campaigns (think "Mount & Blade"), spiced up with hit & run missions, escort duty, secret missions (sometimes supporting landing craft in invasions), and including historical and custom scenarios (skirmish).”
- “At ports, you can request a mission from HQ, but these missions are often wildly unbalanced or outright mechanically impossible.”
- “The mission system is frustrating; some missions send you against overwhelmingly powerful enemy fleets, making them nearly impossible early on.”
- “Another option is to earn money by completing missions for HQ, although this is a gamble as some of the missions assigned are optimistic to say the least, and even if you survive the potential suicide mission, the payouts can be disappointingly low.”
graphics
88 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
30%
55%
15%
The graphics are generally considered simplistic, dated, and below modern standards, with some users noting poor ship models and dark visuals. However, many find them adequate for gameplay, appreciating the range of ship designs despite lacking polish or detail. Overall, while not impressive, the graphics do not significantly detract from the game's strategic and naval combat experience.
- “Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition celebrates the 20th anniversary of one of the most popular strategy games ever with stunning 4K Ultra HD graphics, a new and fully remastered soundtrack, and brand-new content, “The Last Khans” with 3 new campaigns and 4 new civilizations.”
- “Graphics are superb for the depth and content of the title, and while you cannot control your subsystems or damage your enemy's, you do have to watch firing arcs, lead with torpedoes, dodge incoming shells and torpedoes and decide when to send your aircraft into battle if equipped with carriers.”
- “The graphics are really nice.”
- “I can say I am sorry I bought this game; it has very poor graphics and poor gameplay.”
- “Do note that the game features subpar graphics and sound quality, and some 3D models of ships are reversed (bow becoming stern and vice versa), combined with the price these are probably the only downsides of this game.”
- “All due respect to whoever designed and wrote this... but this is awful... well ok, maybe awful is a little over the top but... $2 shop graphics and sound effects like a 1st generation PS1 game, the interface whilst easy to use is hopelessly too busy and always in the way - eg, the mission goal will always obscure the ship you are shooting at.”
gameplay
68 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
15%
79%
6%
The gameplay is generally described as simple, accessible, and arcade-like, offering an easy-to-learn experience with replayability through different factions and campaign options. However, it lacks depth, strategic complexity, and variation, leading to repetitive combat and limited long-term engagement for some players. Despite its simplicity, the game provides enjoyable naval battles with a versatile pause-and-play mechanic and potential for fans of light naval simulation.
- “Having different factions and campaign options (and different mechanics exclusive to harder difficulties) adds a fair bit of replayability.”
- “The tactical gameplay is quite strong, whether you elect to pay it RTS-style by letting the AI control your armada, or if you use the quite versatile pause-any-time engine to control most of your ships manually.”
- “The gameplay is fantastic, it’s rare to get a naval strategy game and the developers are rather ambitious.”
- “The gameplay interface is finnicky and tiresome, and is far more annoying than engaging.”
- “After 6 hours of gameplay (and the completion of one of its campaigns), I felt no reason to play any more - I had seen all there was to see.”
- “Gameplay is slow and repetitive, you spend all your time shooting at formless dots on the screen that if you turn off the flag sign above them the ship itself is utterly invisible, the camera cannot pan back far enough to show you your entire line of sight area which is frequently off the edge of the screen.”
grinding
12 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
17%
83%
Grinding in the game is a mixed experience, described as occasionally grindy but not overwhelmingly so, with progression heavily reliant on accumulating experience and resources to build a stronger fleet. Some players find the grind long and sometimes tedious, especially due to costly penalties for losing vessels, while others appreciate the steady progression and balanced difficulty at certain points. Overall, grinding can feel repetitive and slow but remains integral to advancing and enjoying the gameplay.
- “It can, however, be very grindy, and has a fair bit of minor bugs.”
- “Game depth is comparable to that of a peddling pool, with a rather skewed grinding curve and somewhat unexpectedly punishing consequences for losing vessels. Any damage sustained will be repaired for free upon visiting a friendly port, but a fee has to be paid to recommission a destroyed vessel, which somewhat prohibits experimentation and effectively locks you into a spiral if you lose too many ships in rapid succession.”
- “Grinding experience and funds gets old real fast.”
stability
8 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game's stability is frequently criticized due to persistent bugs, crashes, and freezes that hinder ship control and mission playability. Tactical commands can be unreliable or unclear, leading to frustrating gameplay, and occasional visual and UI glitches further detract from the experience. While some improvements have been made since release, many users still find the game unstable and overpriced for its current state.
- “Enjoyable naval battle game, but freezes and crashes constantly.”
- “Some orders, especially in the tactical screen, are buggy either in function or display, making it nearly impossible to know exactly what your ships are doing or will be doing.”
- “It's pretty buggy; for example, Portsmouth was taken by the Germans and I was tasked with taking out the British fleet to retake it, but after it was retaken, the fleet became unusable to me.”
replayability
6 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
50%
17%
33%
Replayability is enhanced by multiple factions, dynamic campaigns, and different difficulty mechanics, offering varied experiences across large sandbox theaters. However, some users find replay value limited due to repetitive fleet-building and lingering bugs. Overall, the game provides substantial replay potential, especially for those who enjoy experimenting with different playstyles.
- “Having different factions and campaign options (and different mechanics exclusive to harder difficulties) adds a fair bit of replayability.”
- “Three massive sandbox theatres to mess around within, and you can choose a number of different sides to play as, so adds to replayability.”
- “The campaigns are fully dynamic, in the spirit of Mount and Blade, and fully replayable.”
- “-no replayability value.”
- “Put together, this makes for low replayability; typically, I'll play it for a week, end up with a fleet of 80+ including 60 carriers (as I say, more arcade than historically accurate), delete it, then come back six months or more later.”
optimization
5 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
20%
20%
60%
The game's optimization struggles during large-scale battles, causing significant slowdowns that hinder player control and strategy. While it generally runs smoothly and is stable, performance issues arise when many units are on screen, indicating subpar optimization for handling intensive combat scenarios.
- “The game runs smoothly, takes up little space, and does not crash.”
- “Then when the enemy launches the big fleet at you, you start at close range, and the game clags up running slowly, so you can't even maneuver or tell it who to attack while the enemy's AI just blasts you away.”
- “Might also be due to the number of boats I send in the battles, but that's also a sign of rather sloppy optimization.”
- “Then look at unit performance, physics, and other combat elements.”
music
4 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
25%
75%
The music in Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition is fully remastered and praised for enhancing the classic strategy game experience, especially with its updated soundtrack for the 20th anniversary. However, some users report technical issues where only the music plays without the game launching properly. Overall, the soundtrack is celebrated but may be limited in variety.
- “Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition celebrates the 20th anniversary of one of the most popular strategy games ever with a new and fully remastered soundtrack.”
- “I launch the game, the music starts playing, but the window is nowhere to be found.”
- “No longer works with MacBook Pro i5 High Sierra 10.13.3; it just plays the music and does nothing else.”
- “As far as I can tell, the soundtrack consists of precisely one track.”
humor
3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The humor in the game is noted for its amusing moments, such as exaggerated ship caricatures and absurd scenarios like obliterating cruisers with unrealistic tactics. While some find these instances funny, others feel the game lacks consistent humor, side plots, and mini-games to enhance its comedic appeal.
- “Nice little caricatures of real life ships, and blowing up a cruiser with an Iowa in one broadside is just stupidly hilarious.”
- “It is actually funny when you realize your 32 knot cruiser is barely able to outpace your landing craft.”
atmosphere
2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
50%
50%
The atmosphere in the game is notably enhanced by authentic voiceovers featuring original speeches from historical figures like Churchill, adding depth and immersion. However, certain elements detract from the overall atmospheric experience.