I recently finished rewatching all of the Wire, and on reflection I think Season 2 is my favourite of five. This is in large part due to the tragic character of Frank Sobotka, the stevedore and union leader driven into the arms of organised crime as he struggles to keep his workers paid and Baltimore’s ailing trade port afloat.
While it’s unlikely that Docked will be as thematically complex as one of the most critically acclaimed TV shows of all time, it does lump you with a similar challenge as poor ol’ Frank. This latest entry in Saber Interactive’s fleet of vehicle simulators puts you in the role of a longshoreman tasked with rebuilding and expanding a struggling dockyard. In this case, your problems aren’t caused by economic tides, but by a recent hurricane that has battered your port.
Like this year’s Roadcraft, Docked involves a mixture of driving enormous vehicles and higher-level management. The central game loop involves unloading massive cargo ships of their cuboid containers (or “cans” as Frank would call them). To do this, you’ll need to master driving flatbed trucks, heavy-duty lifting tractors, and dock-specific vehicles like massive cranes and straddle carriers.
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More broadly, you’ll need to keep the port’s finances in check by snagging new contracts and ensuring your customers get the cargo they need, as well as maintaining and repairing the dock equipment and investing in its infrastructure. Fulfilling contracts will enable you to buy better machinery, upgrade the dock’s yards and offices, and expand the scale of your port.
It’s intriguing how Saber’s vehicular games are shifting from straight-up driving challenges to being broader, more managerial affairs. I also wonder whether it’s the right direction. RoadCraft proved divisive when it launched back in April, with many players lamenting that its broader scope came at the cost of quality vehicle handling.
Indeed, our own Shaun Prescott was forced to adjust his expectations when he tested RoadCraft earlier this year. “In some ways it’s a physics puzzler wrapped in a lavish simulator outfit,” he wrote back in February. “When I started to think about it like this, I started to enjoy it more.”
Docked may be able to provide both advanced logistics simulation and detailed vehicle handling, of course. But I do think making a proper SnowRunner sequel alongside these more adventurous titles would alleviate much of the complaining. In any case, there’s no release date for Docked yet, but I imagine it’ll float into port sometime next year.
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