Day dreams of U-Boat hunting have been put to rest on the 6th of December, with the launch of Iron Wolf Studio and Daedalic Entertainment’s Destroyer: the U-Boat Hunter, a singular title on a crowded market, that zooms solely at the action of anti-submarine warfare on the Atlantic Ocean during World War 2. Tasked with commanding a Fletcher-class destroyer, players will interact with the authentic instruments and attack procedures to keep the ravaging skippers at torpedo length. At just 29,99€ or $29.99, D:UH is an easy recommendation for wishlisting and eye-keeping. 

What’s Iron Wolf’s history?

Iron Wolf Studio started as a board game development company founded in 2017 by Bartosz Pluta and Artur Salwarowski. Together, they created U-boot: the Board Game. A unique, highly successful hybrid between a board game and a U-boat simulator that raised over 680,000 GBP on Kickstarter and sold more than 24,000 copies worldwide. The game was translated into 8 languages and has been awarded the prestigious Charles S. Roberts award for excellence in wargame design in 8 different categories (including the coveted ‘best WW2 era board game of the year’ prize, among others). Following the success, Iron Wolf Studio decided to focus on full-blown World War 2 simulation games, with Destroyer: the U-boat Hunter being their first offering.

Have you worked in any previous games before? Or is Destroyer: The U-Boat Hunter your first game?

Destroyer is our first full-blown PC game, but since U-boot: the Board Game is an app-driven board game, working on its app has given us a lot of insight into game dev from the electronic entertainment side of things.

How did the game come to be? What games inspired it?

There was no particular game that inspired Destroyer. We drew mostly from historical research that we conducted on the USS KIDD in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, as well as from consultations with anti-submarine warfare experts. A notable source of inspiration was definitely Enemy Below.

What motivated you to start working on it?  

After working on U-boot: the Board Game, we realized that there is no computer game depicting the Allied side of the conflict in the Battle of the Atlantic, so we set out to present the battle from the perspective of a convoy escort.

Destroyer: The U-Boat Hunter is certainly a game that stands out due to its extreme focus on doing a single thing right: Destroyer Combat during World War 2. What came first? The interest in the conflict or the love of video games? 

Both of these appeared in the lives of the creators so early that it is difficult to say. 

I’m curious to know how accurate are the systems depicted in the game?

One of the main premises while working on Destroyer was to depict the technical aspect of 1940s anti-submarine warfare as closely as possible, but without making it too complicated at the same time. Therefore, while not every switch on the devices featured in the game is functional, then again, they are working in accordance with their historically accurate parameters.

And what concessions had to be made to accommodate appealing gameplay and realism? 

One of the main design decisions that had to be made early on was to sacrifice a bit of depth in favour of width. What I mean by that is that although not every system in the game is fully interactive, then, at the same time, it is safe to say that we have captured all the essential responsibilities of the anti-submarine attack team.

During your research for the game, certainly, a couple of historical documents or accounts must have stayed in your mind. Care to recount some of those? 

The most noteworthy documents that we have gleaned our insight from were available in the declassified document repository of the US Navy, such as ‘Anti-Submarine and Escort of Convoy Instructions’, ‘Anti-submarine Warfare in World War II’, and the ‘Surface Plotting Manual’. Other sources such as Morison’s ‘Battle of the Atlantic’ and Blair’s ‘Hitler’s U-boat War’ were of great help, too. 

While perusing the Steam Page of Iron Wolf I came across “Sherman Commander”. Anything you would like to say about that game?

Sherman Commander is the next project in Iron Wolf Studio’s World War II game series. It puts the player in the shoes of a Sherman tank platoon commander in the European theatre. It will be a far bigger game than Destroyer, and we are very excited to be able to present our vision of mechanized warfare and infantry support gameplay that we are planning for this title. We are currently working on a demo that we are aiming to launch mid 2024, so please stay tuned for more information on Sherman Commander very soon!

What are some of the team’s’ favourite games? And what other gaming genres and franchises do they enjoy playing?

I can only speak for myself, and I like playing a bit of everything. I used to be a videogame journalist for over 20 years, specializing in fighting games and military titles. However, I used to play games of all genres when I still had a lot of time to do that. 

Every game developer I interview has to face the gauntlet and answer this question: you’re only allowed to pick 5 games to play forever. What games would you choose and why?

EA Sports WRC, Wipeout Omega Collection, Soul Calibur 2, Towerfall: Ascension, Tom Clancy’s Endwar. The answer is simple: infinite replayability.

Thanks a lot for your time!

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