European Ship Simulator setting sail on 20th February

I see the appeal of Euro Truck Simulator 2, but for me, there's something far more exciting about the prospect of being out on the water, fiddling with levers and dials in some manner of ship. Some manner of ships feature in the (of course) prosaically named European Ship Simulator, which has just been given a release date of 20th February. Control a giant hulking ferry! Or a tiny fishing boat or speedboat! Or several other ships in between. Take on missions, battle the elements, or simply lark about pretending you're Robert Shaw in Jaws. I'll be doing the last one, obviously.

Mission Editor Create missions triggering changes in wind speed, weather effects and objectives
Mission Mode Play through individual challenges and improve your time and score to earn rewards
Ships Includes a fishing boat, container ship, tanker and ocean cruiser
Ports Calais, Dover, Rostock, Rotterdam, Hamburg and Gibraltar
Weather A variety of ever-changing weather conditions from bright, sunny days to dark, stormy nights with lightning and sound effects
Physics – fight against realistic water physics to maintain control of the vessel

There doesn't appear to be any free-roaming, unfortunately, but then you can't have everything. You know, unless you're Rupert Murdoch or whoever, in which case you probably already own all the boats and all the islands you could ever sail them to. For the rest of us, European Ship Simulator should do nicely—as long as it's any cop, obviously.

Thanks, Blue's News.

Tom loves exploring in games, whether it’s going the wrong way in a platformer or burgling an apartment in Deus Ex. His favourite game worlds—Stalker, Dark Souls, Thief—have an atmosphere you could wallop with a blackjack. He enjoys horror, adventure, puzzle games and RPGs, and played the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VIII with a translated script he printed off from the internet. Tom has been writing about free games for PC Gamer since 2012. If he were packing for a desert island, he’d take his giant Columbo boxset and a laptop stuffed with PuzzleScript games.