Warfare MMO Foxhole is adding naval combat complete with huge multi-person ships
Gunboats, destroyers, battleships, and submarines will defend landing craft and construct portable harbors.
Massive multiplayer warfighting game Foxhole is expanding big time, taking its huge wars to the high seas for the first time by adding major naval vessels like submarines, battleships, destroyers, and more that will take dozens of players to crew and operate across duty stations like command, piloting, engineering, guns, sonar, depth charges, and sea mines. It'll also bring a huge overhaul to the mechanics of naval invasions, introducing sea-based headquarters vessels where players can spawn. Foxhole's Naval Warfare update will launch on October 26, 2023.
Foxhole is a huge game where thousands of players produce each bullet and shell, drive it to the front lines, and fire it at the enemy. In development since 2017, the first small boats and amphibious craft were introduced years ago but operations had been mostly restricted to coastal areas and near-shore islands—with the near-shore islands generally left off the map for recent wars.
This new expansion will expand the war map to include fully water-based regions once again, with players now able to use not just landing ships and undertake sea-based logistics, but construct portable harbors to support successful invasions. The new regions will have not just large strategic islands, but offshore oil platforms to fight over. The new Base Ships will be designed to spawn players at sea before ferrying them onto landing craft so they can relive the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan.
The Naval Warfare update will include a few other big things—including some that developers Siege Camp had said probably weren't ever coming to Foxhole. Most notably is towing for infantry-pushed field weapons and equipment. Trucks, Half-Tracks, and other vehicles like them will now be able to attach and tow all those field guns. There'll also be attachable trailers for logistics players hauling expanded amounts of cargo to the front.
Rounding out the update are a few things that would be notable for Foxhole players in their own right: Large deployable field artillery guns, new massive Heavy Duty trucks to haul them, heavy self-propelled artillery platforms, and player-built launch sites for screen-obliterating ballistic rockets.
If this is the first you're hearing of Foxhole, it's a pretty unique game where thousands of players strategize, supply, and fight in their own wars as either the Warden or Colonial factions. It's roughly based on a time in a fictional world at the technology level of the after World War 1 interwar period, with in-game tech advancing as each war goes on to something like the end of, or just after, World War 2.
You can find Foxhole on Steam, where it's $30 US, or on its website foxholegame.com. Foxhole hit its proper 1.0 release last year, and developer Siege Camp has announced their next game will be a massive medieval warfare MMO, but that clearly hasn't slowed down the pace or scope of updates and new features on Foxhole.
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Jon Bolding is a games writer and critic with an extensive background in strategy games. When he's not on his PC, he can be found playing every tabletop game under the sun.