Ship just got real

I’m sorry about the headline. I really am. It’s the tagline for Pieces Interactive’s upcoming naval strategy game Leviathan: Warships. PC Gamer has a hands-on preview of the Paradox published multiplayer game that looks lovely. It’s an asynchronous real-time game that pits player-designed battleship fleets against each another.

The framework of your Leviathan fleet is a Warhammer tabletop-esque point-buy system, with three tiers for Small, Medium, and Large fleets. Using these points, you can fully customize a handful of ship classes with different weapons, bridge types, speed-boosting modifications, energy shields, and more. Each hull has a limited number of hard points, which can generally fit one, bigger gun, or a couple smaller ones. The only limit to the type of fleet you can build is your point budget.

Shields and weapons are all directional, as well. You can save on points by loading up one side of your ship with a completely insane amount of guns while leaving the other side bare, but this opens up the possibility of your opponent out-maneuvering you and hitting your undefended broadside. Vision and weapon ranges also play a large role. You can only shoot what you can see, and most weapons have a minimum (as well as a maximum) range.

Ships created with a point-buy system? Yes, please! I’m a sucker for any game that allows players to pick and choose components and design their own machines of doom.