Games

not a single mention of Dave the diver! on sale now too, and even better on istherenlanydeal

Dredge is pretty fun and different!

Subnautica

Odyssey is more recent but Black Flag definitely has better storms

Gotta go with the old school here, Sid Meier's Pirates! No water physics, graphics from 2004, etc, but so much fun that I've been playing it since the original came out in 1987. Hell, i was playing the 2004 remake just last week even.

I like Anno 2070, a game which takes place in a world where the sea levels have risen to a barely-sustainable level. But it's okay, because you can repopulate with the power of solarpunk machinery!

I'm here for Sea of Thieves, so much fun.

Subnautica is one of the best games out there, I highly recommend it to everyone.

Sea of Thieves has the best ocean physics, the water is absolutely gorgeous, but gameplay is shallow as the game is trying to appeal to as many people as possible.

Dave the Diver!

Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker has some of the most fun sailing physics of any ocean game I've ever played.

And the physics were realistic enough that you could fill out the map before you got the ability to control the winds just by tacking the boat.

Either Subnautica or AC Black Flag. Odyssey's water gameplay sucks balls compared to Black Flag.

Alternatively, Raft is quite nice

Probably will get some groans but World of Warships is actually modeled very nicely. And yeah its a free to play monetized game, but it is miles ahead of war thunder in terms of actually having fun and playing the game at high FPS and great quality even with a potato computer.

The engine has some cool tricks that really makes it shine with water spraying and sloshing onto your vessel.

That's a lot of different categories.

I like naval warfare games, but I tend towards the sim side, not the "experience being someone there" sort.

The naval warfare game that I have played the most of recently is Rule the Waves 3. That's definitely not an eye candy game, but it models the design and development of warships from 1880 into the Cold War, the construction of fleets, and the tactics when they meet, has a lot of flexibility to simulate different stuff.

The game that I'm most looking forward to being completed is Sea Power: Naval Combat in the Missile Age, which is presently still in Early Access and last time I played it still had a lot of unfinished work. Sort of a spiritual successor to Fleet Command/Jane's Fleet Command. Modern air and naval warfare.

It doesn't work on Linux, so I can't play it, but Command: Modern Operations is probably the most sim-oriented contemporary air/naval warfare program you can get.

Two other naval warfare games that I enjoy playing:

Cold Waters, which is a Cold War sub warfare game. It abstracts out a lot of the manual stuff that some other sub sims do. Covers the "hide, gather data, strike" bit.

Carrier Command 2. This is not a real-world oriented sim. You command an amphibious assault ship which can capture islands to gain resources, capture technology, and buy munitions, air and amphibious vehicles, and fight against another similar amphibious assault ship approaching you. I really like the untextured polygon aesthetic -- they make stuff look pretty even with just that. Need to manage a ton of vehicles and aircraft and production and logistics vessels and support craft concurrently; as the game continues on, the load increases. If you've played Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising, sort of similar idea

both are based on Carrier Command. Not mission-oriented the way Hostile Waters is. It's really intended to be played multiplayer, which I've no interest in, but you can play single-player if you can handle the load of doing all the tasks. I had a surprising amount of fun banging away with this one. I really think that this game would have benefited from some rebalancing and further development

some gear just isn't all that useful, and I think that the game would make a magnificent base for a more-sophisticated-dynamic-campaign single-player-oriented game.

You mention Subnautica. I enjoyed that, though unlike the other games here, that's not really a naval warfare game, but it's certainly got a sea theme. I think I own the sequel, Subnautica: Below Zero, but haven't played it, but given that you don't mention it, I thought I would, as I'd assume that if you like the first game, you'd also enjoy the second.

Sunless Sea and its sequel Sunless Sea: Zubmariner is...hard to describe, more about providing a dark British Empire fantasy naval-themed game. Not naval warfare, but exploring a subterranean world...but it's got sea theming. Not much like everything else on here. Mostly about creating a mood

the gameplay isn't terribly deep.

It's not, strictly-speaking, a sea-based game, but Nebulous: Fleet Command is a sci-fi space-based fleet warfare game. A lot of the elements that you might want in a sea-based fleet naval warfare game are there, sensors, electronic warfare, weapons and countermeasures and such.

I think that those are the sea- or sea-associated games that I'd probably most recommend, myself.

EDIT: I have not yet gotten around to playing Dredge, but I've read enough positive comments on it that I'd suggest at least looking at it.

Cold Waters

Breakwaters Crystal Tides. I’ve never played it but the water sim looks really good.

Also Flotsam and Raft

Pretty stoked for Bannerlord’s next expansion, War Sails.

I haven't played it, but there's a game called Salt 2 that I've been interested in for a while.

The steam page says it's basically an infinite ocean with different islands and such. It sounds like it might be procedurally generated, but you can customize your ship and it's basically your mobile base and all.

I read this as "Sea Bass game" at first.

Honestly, I don't know.

Ecco the Dolphin. (Genesis)

Sid Meier's Pirates! (PC)

Subnautica (PC)

Uncharted Waters: New Horizons (SNES)

I would really like something that is a modern Uncharted Waters or Pirates! game. They are both very similar games, and both are also quite old.

From the Depths — it’s mind-meltingly complex, graphics are mid, and takes a few liberties with physics, but it lets you build your own warships Minecraft-style, including custom cannons, missiles, and air defense.

Definitely not the best, but still worth a mention is "Stormworks: Build and rescue". Basically a Lego like "build a ship/plane and do missions on the oceans" game - missions nowadays are also including far more than rescue.

Not the best to any degree but just wanted to shout out the Pimps at Sea mod for Halo MCC that adds boats

From the creators of Cold Waters you have Sea Power, I like it a lot but it is more about strategy fighting with missiles and stuff from the Cold War rather than really enjoying sea.

Ultimate admiral dreadnoughts and War on the sea are also cool options for naval warfare.

Ships at Sea for normal modern sea stuff (fishing, cargo etc).

Naval action for slow wooden ships in the Bahamas.

But the best pirate game still is Assassin’s Creed Black Flag. You can mod it a little and find good shaders to have it look a bit better on today’s hardware.

(I often play Assassin’s Creed Rogue on the Steam deck as it is the small successor of black flag and looks very nice on this screen size)

Abzu? Dave the diver, maybe? Dredge?

Or, this might be a might more out of left field or maybe completely stupid and not at all what you had in mind, but what about coral island? You don't get to experience the water surface except when fishing or doing other stuff on the shore. But you get to do stuff on the bottom and there's mermaids and stuff.

Stardew valley with a tropical island vibe. So definitely fun and immersive. Definitely more adjacent than something like sea of thieves or black flag or subnautica, but I feel like it fits better than just cause 3, imo