Happy New Year! It’s time for the second edition of my annual Naval Wargaming predictions. If you haven’t yet done so, be sure to read last year’s predictions and how well I did on them! Just like last year, I have no inside information on any of these predictions; this is all just me taking an educated (or in some cases, a not so educated) guess on what might be coming down the line for 2016. Here we go!
1. Given that 2016 is the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Jutland, a “Class A” WWI naval combat game will be released. This May will mark 100 years since the British and German fleets faced each other at the Battle of Jutland. The battle took place in the North Sea off the Danish coast, and was the single largest battleship engagement ever. Without a doubt, this will be one of the most, if not the most, significant WWI centenaries for naval warfare buffs like me. So, it stands to reason that at least one new game will release to commemorate it. For those of you that aren’t aware, a “Class A” game is what Greg and I refer to on the podcast as a game that is supported and relatively easy to find in brick-and-mortar stores.
2. Sails of Glory from Ares games will see a new wave of ships this year, possibly via another Kickstarter. Things have been quiet on the Sails of Glory front for a little while. Ares has continued supporting the game by doing some truly impressive convention games, but no new products have hit for some time. I am betting this will change in 2016. There are plenty of Spanish and US ships that I’d like to see in the game!
3. The Dropfleet Commander Kickstarter will fulfill on time, and the game will satisfy the (admittedly high) expectations of its backers. The Dropfleet Commander KS was a roaring success, netting almost a million bucks. For those of us that have been around KS for a while, it was easy to see that the Dropfleet campaign was well thought out, thoroughly planned, and professionally executed. It is for that reason that I think its an easy bet that Hawk will come through and deliver the game on the timeline they’ve laid out. I can hardly wait!
4. Spartan Games will be able to successfully balance their game systems and maintain new releases for each of them. Spartan has, to say the least, a very diverse portfolio of games; Firestorm Armada, Dystopian Wars, Dystopian Legions, Armored Clash, Firestorm Planetfall, and Halo Fleet Battles all vie for the attentions of the company’s talented designers and production staff. In the past, this lead to long delays between releases for some games while others got “all the love.” However, I contend that Spartan did a good job in 2015 of balancing their efforts and making sure that most all of their games got something over the course of the year. It seems to me that Spartan is starting to really hit its stride as a company after several years of chaotic growth, so I expect this balanced approach to continue in 2016.
5. World of Warships will gain in popularity in 2016, and will have a full Royal Navy tech tree by the end of the year. World of Warships is struggling a little bit in North America, from what I gather. Its not so much that its a failure, it’s just that WoWS hasn’t been as wildly successful as World of Tanks has been. However, its a bit early in the game’s life cycle yet. World of Tanks took some time to get going too, so I suspect WoWS will grow this year. I also expect to see the British in the game; they had a huge fleet in WWI and WWII, so it only makes sense to see them in WoWS. It makes more sense than having the Soviets, anyway (the Russian/Soviet ships got priority due to the nationality of the game’s developer, it seems). Plus, it only makes sense given the impending Jutland centenary I mentioned above.
6. Battlefleet Gothic Armada will release by the end of Q2 2016 and will be a worthy game for the franchise. This BFG video game is being produced by Tindalos Interactive, and is looking pretty awesome! We first found out about the game in early 2015, and we know it has entered Alpha testing. The stated plan for this game is for it to release by the end of Q1 2016, which would be the end of March. I’m giving myself some leeway on this one, though, since I suspect there may be a delay based on the lack of info presented about the game thus far. Still, I’m confident based on the teasers I’ve seen so far that this game will be both a ton of fun to play and true to the source material. This is one to watch for sure.
There’s my 2016 predictions! We will see if I managed to do any better this year than I did last year. We will see in December!