Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts on Steam - User reviews, Price & Information
Quick menu
Design warships the way you want them, command fleets, win the naval arms race for your nation!
Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts is a naval combat, naval and world war i game
developed and published by Game-Labs.
Released on January 25th 2023 is available only on Windows
in 10 languages: English, French, German, Spanish - Spain, Japanese, Ukrainian, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Greek and Korean.
It has received 7,169 reviews of which 4,515 were positive and 2,654 were negative resulting in a rating of 6.2 out of 10. 😐
The game is currently priced at 33.99€ on Steam.
The Steam community has classified Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts into these genres:
Media & Screenshots
Get an in-depth look at Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts through various videos and screenshots.
System requirements
These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.
Windows
- Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
- OS *: 64-bit Windows 7
- Processor: Intel Core i5-2500K 3.3GHz, AMD Phenom II X4 940
- Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GTX 660, AMD Radeon HD 7870
- DirectX: Version 11
- Network: Broadband Internet connection
- Storage: 4 GB available space
User reviews & Ratings
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
To preface this: The game studio was acquired and basically dissolved by a private equity firm. It's almost certainly never going to be updated again, even though it genuinely did need some more love and polish. Now, despite this problem, I still enjoy this game. The campaign has its shortcomings, namely in minor nation conflicts and the lack of player agency in land warfare. The AI nation balancing is so-so, and it does have some peculiarities. However, the ship designer is reasonably intuitive, and the battle UI is perfectly fine in my eyes. Performance can start to drop as the save goes on, if you've still got multiple major powers surging upwards after ~1930. This is a very decent game if you like tinkering and fiddling with things. Get it on a decent sale though, because it's definitely abandonware in the strictest sense of the word.
Expand the review
This is my favourite game, but as you can see from some of the other reviews this is that special kind of game where people can play it for thousands of hours and not recommend it. How is that? I think it is because this game makes you care. Games are all about the consequences of your decisions and I have never played a game that gives you consequences like this one. The loop of designing ships, using them in combat and then learning the lessons from that for what you need to do going forwards is fantastic. Every decision you make has ramifications, you will have to compromise and then find out if you made the right choice potentially years later. Make a ship with everything, high speed, armour, firepower etc. Only to find out building the things will bankrupt your nation and take years to finish. Or rush out a compromised stopgap ship only for it to go on and prove exactly the vessel you need in a vital battle. As these experiences build up through a campaign you feel connected to it. Every ship in your navy is there thanks to decisions you made, each ship lost can hurt, not just because it might cost a battle, but that it can be a sign of bad decisions or compromises that you had to take. Its hard to do it justice in a written description but take these 1000+ hour play times accounts as proof that this game is doing something very right. Which is why for some people it sucks when it doesn't reach the heights they know it can. However, if this game has caught your eye then I think it is worth a try, because you might just find the game for you.
Expand the review
A GREAT GAME, MARRED BY SOME BAD CHOICES Let me start off saying I do love this game, no other game lets you design ships and lead the naval arm of a nation the same way but there are some SERIOUS caveats to this game PROS [*] The Naval builder is realllllly fun, designing your own fleet and making concessions makes for a compelling hook [*] The game battles look fairly nice, ships burn when hit, turrets fly when ammo cooks off and tracers pierce the fog from an enemy that you sometimes cant see [*] The games timeframe is nice, from Pre-dreadnoughts up to super battleships and all the things between [*] Every nation gets a slightly different look, hulls from nations often differ from others [*] Managing threats and guiding your navy arm CAN be quite fun but has some issues CONS [*] The ship design system has SERIOUS issues telling you important info, if you dont go into your settings and change your armour quality % you wont get accurate pen values [*] Ship design is also marred with bugs, heavy limitations that take away from fun and often LAG [*] The Ai is stupid, like really stupid, sending DOZENS of 1 ship groups on a 22 turn trip to the sea of japan only to get destroyed by either an AI condensed fleet or your fleets [*] The economy is broken. Oh you just sunk EVERY ship from a nation? don't worry they will be rebuilt in a year, also congrats if they don't want to surrender your waiting until you can sink more [*] my BIGGEST issue is with fleet management, you queue up 10 destroyers? their going to random bases around your empire. You want to make a task force? your MANUALLY finding every ship and ordering them to port. Even using the FLEET menu to do this is TEDIOUS. [*] I hope you enjoy managing dozens of small groups of task forces that have no identifier on who they are, if not your going to lose when the AI sinks all your transport ships [*] Relations are semi-random so enjoy doing nothing for 2 years just to have 3 majors declare on you [*] AI-designs are AWFUL, a battle ship with 17 inches of armour but 9 inch guns? sure. A CL with 1 single barrel main and DOZENS of 2 inches? sure. Ships with barrbetes that block guns? we've got it. [*] Research has tokens you can put to speed up tech at the cost of reducing ALL other tech times leading to it being functional useless and just making a 100% tech spending is better no matter what, leading to all nations feeling rather samey. If you could really specialise and not be penalized you could see some cool things, maybe a germany that went hard into torpedos and has an advantage in that area while you went hard into being armoured, giving each nation a little bit of flavour in battles and changing stratageys from "Build BB with big gun and DD with speed and torps now you win" But I cant hate this game. its too unique. If they can fix fleet management and a suicidal AI it would get better but still have issues. Pick it up if you like games like war on the sea or victory at sea but be prepared for ALOT of jank and tedium but when it hits it HITS
Expand the review
A Fun And Unique Naval Strategy Game I do recommend Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts to anyone who likes naval warfare. BUT there are several things this game IS NOT and you shouldn't expect of it. Otherwise you will be disappointed. [*] You are not the leader of a nation or a general. You are the head of its admirality. [*] There are no aircraft and or aircraft carrier in the game. [*] It is not a simulation. If you can arrange yourself with those limitations, there a countless hours to be spent in this game. Plus the devs are still releasing regular updates and new content for this game for free. Just ignore the "Multiplayer"-DLC. Don't even look at it. Ignore its existence.
Expand the review
Build Your Own Battleship/ Design Your Dream Dreadnought Aside from the campaign, UAD has a couple of other game modes: The 'Naval Academy' offers 63 self-contained, one-off challenge scenarios of increasing difficulty (but sadly not rewarded with Steam achievements). The 'custom battle' feature allows you to try out various combinations of ships versus other ships. The 'shared designs' feature allows players to create designs which can then be made available to the AI to use (sadly not integrated with Steam Workshop). The heart of the game is its dynamic (i.e. unscripted) SP campaign which lets you choose from ten playable nations and start dates of 1890, 1900, 1910 etc. Some design elements are shared across the playable nations but most major nations have at least some unique hulls. UAD's shipyard is an intuitive, 3D design interface that allows you to build your own ships without much prior knowledge of naval architecture. If you have played Simple Planes, Kerbal Space Program, or Besiege you will find UAD similarly straightforward. You select fundamental aspects (speed, displacement etc) of your design via sliders; other variables (e.g. armour thicknesses) can be clicked +/- or the desired value typed in. The components (turrets, funnels, towers) are chosen from visual menus at the bottom of the screen and placed via drag-and-drop at appropriate locations on the hull; the game provides coloured indication of where it will (or won't) fit. At the simplest extreme, you can create a valid design by placing a main tower at the front, a secondary tower at the back, a funnel somewhere in between, plus at least one main gun wherever you like, and clicking 'save'. Of course, whether you have created a good, balanced design is a different matter since the eternal trade-off between speed/firepower/armour is a design challenge without end. You can make a decent approximation (not replica) of Bismarck, Yamato, Iowa, KGV etc. If for some reason you don't want to design your own fleet at the outset, there is the option to have the AI auto-design one for you. The game features three difficulty levels (normal, hard & legendary) which - as in many strategy games - do nothing more than increase the AI's funding on higher difficulties. The highest setting can help keep a playthrough as the UK or USA challenging for longer. UAD's battle interface maintains the time-honoured dichotomy of 'left-click select, right-click do' so will be instantly playable for anyone who has played an RTS in the last quarter century. The game features modern camera controls (hold RMB to rotate the camera, move the camera with WSAD). This may sound obvious but it's a big part of what makes UAD vastly preferable to the handful of really old-school alternatives e.g. Stormpowered's Jutland/Distant Guns series. Whatever start date you select, the campaign will end in January 1965 at the latest - it may end much sooner if you go bankrupt or unrest resulting from your decisions boils over into a national revolution. Seeing battleship combat continue into the Beatles era(!) is jarring: in UAD's permanently plane-free playground, the battleship is never rendered obsolete by carrier aviation. Even spotter planes are absent from this game: it's like an alternate history where the Wright Brothers stuck to bicycles! Subs are notionally present but reduced to an unseen nuisance. Whereas by 1965 IRL the *other* HMS Dreadnought - the nuclear one - had already been in service for two years! The campaign map is visually fairly minimalist until you hover over units, ports etc for more info. However it is not explained to new players how to provoke a war or intercept specific enemy fleets. Dilemmas (random events that 'pop up' at the start of each turn) closely resemble those from Rule the Waves III: I'm unsure which game was 'inspired' by the other... Used wisely they can help to manipulate the economy to your liking (sacrifice naval budget now to boost GDP in the long run?) but will quickly become repetitive. The battle interface is necessarily less minimalist but does a good job of keeping the abundant information to the edge of the screen (and providing more via tool tips). The lack of a 'formation editor' à la Sea Power is particularly grievous since it means every large battle begins with a few minutes of chaos while you try to sort out the mess of a formation you didn't choose and couldn't see in advance. The lack of fundamental formation commands ('turn together', 'turn in succession') is galling since even lacklustre naval games like the Ironclads series get this right. Similarly, the AI's inability or unwillingness to sail its ships in straight lines once battle begins makes it impossible to ever have a battle resembling Jutland, Tsushima or indeed any other fleet action you can name. It may be that the AI has been taught to fear incoming torpedos above all else. My disappointment at this AI behaviour adds to my dismay at the relative rarity of massive fleet battles: they are the exception rather than a typical occurrence. The campaign is almost entirely free-form: there aren't even any win conditions so it's entirely up to you to decide whether you 'won'. The 'Campaign finished: retirement' screen is shockingly anticlimactic so my advice is to enjoy the journey, not the destination. In particular, the lack of any 'realm divide' mechanic - whereby almost every faction will eventually unite against the player to prevent them from steamrolling the AI - means there's no guarantee your playthrough will reach any kind of climax unless you engineer it. Diplomacy in UAD is rudimentary but logical: you can click to try to improve relations or increase tension with one nation per turn, plus you can send fleets in proximity to the enemy to provoke tension. The economy of UAD is rudimentary but logical: apart from the money you spend on ships, three sliders determine how you divide your monthly income. Economic warfare (blockade, trade hunting) is effective, though. The research aspect of the game strongly resembles a game called ICBM , because it puts you in charge of competing in an emerging arms-race and despite the names of these games, dreadnoughts/ICBMs are not the only viable way to go. The game does a decent job of communicating why things are working: for example, selecting your ship and then hovering over its target will bring up a list of all the factors influencing the accuracy of its fire at that moment. The game's modelling of ballistics/penetration is robust and broadly realistic even if relies in part on hidden 'dice rolls' (and even if 'partial penetrations' undermine this realism by rewarding ships for firing inadequate AP at a main belt). The fact that you can't scroll continuously across the Pacific is symbolic of UAD's strange combination of high quality and bizarre flaws: it's a game that gets the hard stuff right - the realism, the 3D models, the shipyard interface - but fails at stuff that you would expect to be easy: a map that scrolls continuously, a formation editor, a button to select all ships, or AI fleets that spend most of their time sailing in a straight line. The juxtaposition of overachievement and underachievement is breathtaking. UAD is: [*]stable, playable and fun; [*]a good strategy game; [*]the best 3D dreadnought game ever made. UAD is not: [*]perfect; [*]a great strategy game for people with no interest in naval warfare; [*]the Battle of Jutland simulator I still dream of. Alternatively: If you like dreadnoughts but hate 3D graphics, consider Rules the Waves III instead; If you hate 3D graphics but prefer modern naval strategy, consider Command: Modern Operations; If you like real-time naval strategy but what you really want is carrier combat, then consider either of the above or just wishlisting Task Force Admiral.
Expand the review
Similar games
View all
Darkest Hour: A Hearts of Iron Game
Developed by a team of experienced modders from the Paradox forum, Darkest Hour is a stand-alone Hearts of Iron game. The game features a mixture of short and in-depth campaigns set across the darkest chapters of the 20th century. Play from the outbreak of the Great War up until the onset of the Cold War.
Battle Fleet 2
Welcome Admiral! Select your fleet, assign weapons, and sink the enemy fleet by controlling each of your ships down to setting the aim and range of each weapon's shot. Features include full open world Pacific & Atlantic campaigns, cross-platform multiplayer and awesome turn-based naval battles.
Silent Hunter® III
The king of submarine simulations returns with an all-new 3D engine, new crew command features, and more realistic WWII naval action than ever before. The movie-like graphics and simple, tension-filled gameplay make this the perfect game for the realism fanatic and the casual gamer.
Rule the Waves 3
Rule the Waves III is a simulation of naval ship design and construction, fleet management and naval warfare from 1890 to 1970.
Silent Hunter®: Wolves of the Pacific
Hunt, hide and kill as you take command of U.S. submarines and crews and navigate the treacherous waters of the Pacific during WWII. Silent Hunter, the industry-leading naval warfare simulation franchise for over a decade, returns to its roots with next-generation graphical realism, immersive gameplay, innovative crew evolution and more...
Victory At Sea
Engage in epic RTS warfare across 3 huge campaigns as well as other battle modes. Create your own fleet of ships, pick your side and enter into World War II naval combat on a global scale.
Atlantic Fleet
Turn based tactical and strategic naval combat. Atlantic Fleet puts you in command of the Allies or Kriegsmarine (German Navy) in the longest military campaign of WWII, The Battle of the Atlantic.Take command of surface ships, submarines as well as carrier and land based aircraft in the deadly struggle for control of Atlantic shipping...
Carrier Deck
Carrier Deck is a fast paced time management game where you play as the Air Boss on board the CVN-76 in the midst of active war.
Destroyer: The U-Boat Hunter
Destroyer: The U-Boat Hunter brings you an authentic and historically accurate destroyer simulation along with gripping anti-submarine warfare set in the turmoils of the Atlantic Ocean during World War II.
War on the Sea
Command ships, submarines and aircraft in the South Pacific during WWII.
Fleet Command
International waterways become theaters of war when the world's most formidable maritime powers exchange their fatal blows. With entire fleets at your command, you must strategically deploy vessels from every class - frigate to aircraft to nuclear submarine - to maintain the precarious balance of naval power and gain position for the...
Frequently Asked Questions
Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts is currently priced at 33.99€ on Steam.
Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts is currently not on sale. You can purchase it for 33.99€ on Steam.
Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts received 4,515 positive votes out of a total of 7,169 achieving a rating of 6.21.
😐
Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts was developed and published by Game-Labs.
Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts is playable and fully supported on Windows.
Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts is not playable on MacOS.
Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts is not playable on Linux.
Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts is a single-player game.
There is a DLC available for Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts. Explore additional content available for Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts on Steam.
Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts does not support mods via Steam Workshop.
Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts does not support Steam Remote Play.
Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts is enabled for Steam Family Sharing. This means you can share the game with authorized users from your Steam Library, allowing them to play it on their own accounts. For more details on how the feature works, you can read the original Steam Family Sharing announcement or visit the Steam Family Sharing user guide and FAQ page.
You can find solutions or submit a support ticket by visiting the Steam Support page for Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts.
Data sources
The information presented on this page is sourced from reliable APIs to ensure accuracy and relevance. We utilize the Steam API to gather data on game details, including titles, descriptions, prices, and user reviews. This allows us to provide you with the most up-to-date information directly from the Steam platform.
Additionally, we incorporate data from the SteamSpy API, which offers insights into game sales and player statistics. This helps us present a comprehensive view of each game's popularity and performance within the gaming community.
Last Updates| Steam data | 08 September 2025 02:10 |
|---|---|
| SteamSpy data | 11 September 2025 04:50 |
| Steam price | 14 September 2025 12:50 |
| Steam reviews | 13 September 2025 07:56 |
If you'd like to dive deeper into the details about Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts, we invite you to check out a few dedicated websites that offer extensive information and insights. These platforms provide valuable data, analysis, and user-generated reports to enhance your understanding of the game and its performance.
- SteamDB - A comprehensive database of everything on Steam about Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts
- SteamCharts - Analysis of Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts concurrent players on Steam
- ProtonDB - Crowdsourced reports on Linux and Steam Deck Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts compatibility
Game modes
Features
Online players
597
Developer
Game-Labs
Publisher
Game-Labs
Release
25 Jan 2023
Platforms