I really want to like this game.... I think I would like sailing and this game actually confirms that for me. BUT These mechanics will make you want to drown yourself in the ocean.

Things that need to be greatly improved before I would recommend it:

1. Boat mechanics need to be more easily operable. It makes no sense to have to click on to an item then press the same button to unselect it, with no indicator of mechanic being in use... i.e I should not have to click E to interact with the steering wheel, then use movement controls to operate steering wheel, to then have to press E again to unselect. It makes quick movements like tacking very tedious and problematic as you end up changing the boats directional controls and in many cases getting absolutely stuck with spending 5-10 minutes real time to reposition if lucky.

2. In real life you would be able to feel the resistance of water on the rudder, but in this game there are no indicators to help you with this. The only method I have found so far is to press C which allows a bird's eye view, where you can then see your rudder. But at night, it is extremely difficult to see either your rudder or your wind indication flag. So steering at night is very challenging.

3. Amount of content.... The areas are lacking, and I think this will be improved with later updates (which will be awesome).

4. This is a resource game, and I am good with that, but your character falling asleep has got to be the scariest thing as you can not wake up until about half a day has gone by (quarter game if lucky).... This is not very realistic and makes sailing 20 times harder. If someone is sailing and they are in challenging waters, they are going to stay awake for longer and become a bit sleep deprived as a result. After this they will spend more time asleep, but during that initial time they have to stay awake for safety reasons.

Extremely fun sailing game that is far more in depth then I was expecting 9/10 side note It would be cool if an update would allow me to be able to make bread

Just recently completed a successful cross-ocean voyage in the game (Fort Aestrin to Dragon Cliffs - in the Brig with its default rigging), and so feel I can now write a comprehensive review.

For along time I had always been wanting an age of sail simulator with a first person perspective, where you get to start at port that you can explore, eventually board your ship, and navigate the high seas. Finally, here is a game that successful fulfills that desire. For those who are looking for this type of experience, I can't recommend this game enough.

As other reviewers have noted, the experience of being on the open seas with no land in sight for (in game) weeks on end, the whole time attending to your sails, wind direction, and heading, braving storms, trying your hand at old-school navigation (quadrant and sun compass is what I sued), and kind of just hoping your doing everything half right...let's just say when you finally hit moment where you actually spot the landmass you were hoping for (especially, as in my case, after missing Happy Bay on that maiden voyage), it provides a unique sense of accomplishment and satisfaction that I don't think any other video game has ever delivered for me. To get this same experience, I recommend definitely do some outside research of the game (don't just use the in-game guides,. This game has an active community on the internet to teach you in-depth skills on how to properly sail and navigate), learn the necessarily nautical and sailing terms (you don't necessarily need to know what things like "running beam reach" means to play this game, but I think it helps with immersion). Take your time to do this research while you try to get the hang with everything and before you do any serious sailing. It will make the initial learning curve difficulty of the early game more enjoyable. It did for me, a least.

One big caveat. I went into this with game more of a desire for a "flight simulator on the high seas" experience. I wasn't actually too keen on the survival mechanics (hunger, thirst) and the need to engage with a cutthroat mercantile economic system to build up to the bigger ships through grinding. In fact, those mechanics made me hesitant about purchasing this game at all, though I'm glad I eventually did.

One of the big reasons I made the jump is because I found out I could bypass those mechanics by uploading my save file to that site that lets you edit saves, in order to give myself infinite funds. This allowed me to immediately buy the true sailing age-of-sail ship I wanted to simulate (the Brig) and made food and water management much more manageable. I'm sure some players in the community might frown on that, but honestly this game already has enough rewarding challenges in it in terms of learning to sail and navigate successfully, which i think strict resource management system detracts from. I do hope the developers will consider giving players a bit more natural freedom in the game in terms of whether they want to engage in the merchant and survival systems. In any case, I still highly recommend this game to anyone looking for a solid high seas sailing adventure!