Naval Action
Naval Action is an open world naval combat title set across the 18th Century Caribbean, built around sailing, gunnery, and ship-to-ship tactics rather than quick arcade action. It aims for a grounded historical feel with manual-style navigation, deliberate battle pacing, and ships that look and handle like convincing period vessels.
|
Publisher: Game-Labs Playerbase: High Type: Sandbox MMO Release Date: January 21, 2016 Pros: +Authentic-feeling navigation and sailing. +Excellent ship visuals and period detail. +Deep, granular damage modeling. +Caribbean map built with historical accuracy in mind. Cons: -Combat encounters occur in instanced battles. -Fights are intentionally slow and can run well past 20 minutes. -Progression still feels unfinished and uneven. |
Naval Action Overview
Naval Action drops players into an 18th Century Caribbean sandbox where your ship is your character, your weapon, and your primary investment. The open world is designed for long voyages, scouting coastlines, and choosing your routes with limited tools, so travel feels like part of the game rather than a menu you skip. When conflict happens, battles shift into instanced engagements that emphasize positioning, wind management, broadside timing, and attrition over fast kills.
What sets Naval Action apart is the simulation-leaning approach to ship combat. The damage model is detailed enough that combat is not just about lowering a generic health bar, it is about disabling an opponent by wrecking sails, punching through hull sections, and creating crew losses that reduce effectiveness. Outside of combat, the economy and port-to-port trade give you alternative goals, whether you prefer hauling cargo, hunting for profit margins, or living on the edge as a pirate.
Overall, the game is best approached as a naval sandbox MMO with a historical lens: you set your own objectives, build up ships and resources over time, and pick your battles carefully because engagements are slower, more methodical, and often decided by preparation.
Naval Action Key Features:
- Freedom – chart your own role, whether that means commerce, piracy, or fighting for a nation.
- 50-player battles – join large-scale instanced fights where coordination and positioning matter.
- Realistic navigation – travel using traditional tools like a map and compass instead of modern GPS-style guidance.
- Beautiful ships – ships are modeled with impressive detail and an eye for historical design.
- Historically accurate – the map, ship handling, and damage systems are all built to evoke the period.
Naval Action Screenshots
Naval Action Featured Video
![Naval Action - Early Access Trailer 1 [Official]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/0KVh6TKIwyU/0.jpg)
Naval Action Review
Naval Action targets a very specific kind of player: someone who wants naval combat to feel earned. It is not a “jump in for five minutes” experience most of the time. Sailing to a destination, reading the wind, choosing ammunition and angles, and committing to a drawn-out exchange of broadsides are all part of the core loop. If you enjoy that slower tempo, the game can be genuinely absorbing.
World and progression
The Caribbean setting works well for an MMO sandbox because it naturally supports trade routes, contested waters, and the sense of operating far from safety. Progression revolves around improving your capabilities and expanding what you can reliably do, but it can also feel inconsistent, which makes the overall climb less satisfying than it should be. Players who enjoy setting personal goals (profit targets, ship acquisition, mastery of a favorite vessel) will get more out of it than those who want a tightly structured theme-park path.
Sailing and combat flow
The strongest moment-to-moment element is how the game makes sailing decisions matter. Wind direction, sail management, and positioning can decide a fight before the first cannon fires. Battles being instanced has clear upsides, it helps keep engagements focused and readable, but it also reduces the sense of a seamless living ocean where every encounter is truly part of the same space.
Once combat begins, the pacing is intentionally realistic. You are trading volleys, managing repairs, trying to cripple movement, and looking for opportunities rather than rushing a single burst rotation. This means fights can stretch well past 20 minutes, especially when evenly matched ships are played cautiously. The upside is that victories feel tactical, and defeats usually have lessons attached, the downside is that players wanting quick matchmaking-style action may struggle with the time commitment.
Damage modeling and ship feel
Naval Action’s damage system is one of its defining features. Because individual components and crew effectiveness can be impacted, the optimal strategy is not always “deal maximum damage,” it is often “remove their ability to control the engagement.” That makes ammunition choice, targeting, and positioning more meaningful than in many naval combat games. Visually, ships are also a highlight, with strong attention to shape, scale, and atmosphere that helps sell the fantasy of commanding a wooden warship.
Who it is for
If you want a naval MMO sandbox where learning wind, angles, and ship matchups is the real progression, Naval Action delivers a distinctive experience. If you prefer constant action, short sessions, or a polished guided progression track, the game’s instancing, long engagements, and unfinished-feeling progression may become sticking points.
Naval Action Online Links
Naval Action Official Site
Naval Action Steam Page
Naval Action Development Blog
Naval Action System Requirements
Minimum Requirements:
Operating System: Windows 7 64 bit or newer (32-bit systems can run the game, but they are unsupported)
CPU: Intel Core i5-4570 3.2 GHz / AMD Phenom II X4 B60 3.3 GHz
Video Card: GeForce GTX 460 1GB / AMD Radeon HD 6850 1GB
RAM: 4 GB
Hard Disk Space: 2 GB
Recommended Requirements:
Operating System: Windows 7 64 bit or newer (32-bit systems can run the game, but they are unsupported)
CPU:Core i7-3770 4-Core 3.4GHz / FX-9370
Video Card: GeForce GTX 660 / Radeon HD 7850 2GB Sapphire Edition
RAM: 8 GB
Hard Disk Space: 2 GB
Official system requirements have not yet been released for Naval Action. The requirements above our based on our experience and will be updated when official numbers become available.
Naval Action Music & Soundtrack
Coming Soon!
Naval Action Additional Information
Developer: Game Labs
Engine: Unity
Alpha Release Date: November 24, 2014
Steam Early Access Release Date: January 21, 2016
Development History / Background:
Naval Action is made by Game Labs, a Ukranian studio also known for Ultimate General: Gettysburg. The project was first revealed on June 17, 2013, with pre-orders becoming available in mid-2014. The earliest pre-order group received access to an alpha build on November 24, 2014. In early 2015, pre-orders were halted after interest surged beyond expectations, although some players still managed to secure access by contacting the team or staying active in the community. Naval Action later launched into Steam Early Access on January 21, 2016.