While the Suez Canal crisis is officially over, gamers will get a chance to try navigating it for themselves this month inSuez Canal Simulator. The game was announced just days after the Suez Canal was blocked by the Evergreen Marine Corporation-owned Ever Given container ship. It made news around the world for haltingthe crucial international trade routeand was featured in countless memes afterward.
The game is being developed by Jason Dial and his company Digital Light Foundation, who have not released any major games on theSteamplatform yet. The game is described as a journey that will give players “an understanding of what to expect on the real journey.“Suez Canal Simulatorwill also feature 1:1 replica timings and environments – if the player doesn’t speed anything up, it will take the same 14 hours to cross the Suez Canal, just as long as real life.
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The game will launch with 600 km of explorable area, including the Suez Canal and portions of the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea, and the developer wants to expand this concept even more in the months to come. However,Suez Canal Simulatorwill also have extensive modding support, and the developer is actively looking for modders and content developers to join the team and create more assets for the game.
Plans for the future of the game include implementing a multiplayer mode, adding a wider selection of sea vessels and customizability, and adding more data-driven user interface elements (such as Time At Seaand Distance Traveled trackers). The developer already has their sights on future releases, though, as they plan to releasePanama Canal Simulatorin August 2021.
Suez Canal Simulatoris meant to be aneducational game, one that teaches players about the arduous trip through the canal and educates them on exactly what went wrong with the Ever Given situation. While the game’s description says players might be able to teach real-life sailors a thing or two after playing the game, it’s not recommended to sail the ocean blue without proper training.
Suez Canal Simulatorlooks like it will run on just about any PC and on most modern laptops as it has low graphics requirements. Even though the Ever Given eventually was dislodged from the Suez Canal,Suez Canal Simulatorwill let players experience the thrill of crashing a container ship for themselves.
