Matrix Games

Hello wargamers, naval historians, and ship enthusiasts!

We have an important update regarding the progress of Rule the Waves 3: Expanded Battles. Development on the expansion has been going full steam ahead, and we’re in the final stages of testing, polishing, and tweaking. During Home of Wargamers 2025, we announced the release date for this hotly anticipated expansion - February 24, 2026. We were fully intent on meeting this release date.

Unfortunately, today we must announce that we will be delaying the release of Expanded Battles by just a few weeks. The new release date will be March 19, 2026. The additional wait will not be long, but we understand that this may come as a disappointment to some players.

After careful consideration, we concluded that to ensure that Expanded Battles meets the expectations of the high bar that Rule the Waves 3 has set, and to make sure we release a product that is up to our own quality standards, we need the extra time to put the expansion through its paces and hammer out any remaining critical issues. We don’t want to settle for anything less than delivering a quality wargaming product that we are confident wargamers, naval history enthusiasts, and fans of Matrix Games will enjoy.

However, it’s not all doom and gloom. The additional time has allowed us to expand our content offerings with additional scenarios. In testing, we found that the Operation Rheinubung scenario was a particular favorite amongst our players. For context, Operation Rheinubung was one of the last major efforts by the German Kriegsmarine to tighten the noose on Britain by raiding merchant shipping to the British Isles.

We decided to expand on this exciting period of naval history. The first addition is the detailed scenario of Battle of the Denmark Strait. This scenario encapsulates the famous engagement of the battleship Bismarck with the battlecruiser Hood, leading to the latter’s sudden and explosive demise. We know this is one of the most famous and exciting naval battles of WWII, and we wanted to make sure that players, new and veteran, have a chance to focus on the intensity of the action between these metallic juggernauts.

We also found that the larger scale of Operation Rheinubung has greater strategic decision-making potential, due to the larger theater of operations and asymmetric setup, compared to some of our smaller-scale scenarios. As such, we’re adding a new Hypothetical version of Operation Rheinubung, which expands the active area further and assumes both sides have even more ships to work with, opening up new planning avenues and unexpected opportunities. Some of the new ships to be included with this are the German Battleships Gneisenau and Scharnhorst and their escorts, historically stationed in Brest for repair, as well as additional elements of the Royal Navy’s Force H task force sailing up from Gibraltar. Who knows, perhaps, the historically incomplete German aircraft carrier, Graf Zeppelin, might make an appearance.

We’re planning a couple more dev diaries in the lead up to the release of Expanded Battles, exploring the improved ship designer and quick battles generator in more detail.

Thank you for your understanding, patience, and continued support of Rule the Waves 3! We will see you on the high seas when Expanded Battles releases on March 19, 2026.

WISHLIST EXPANDED BATTLES NOW ON STEAM AND MATRIX WEBSITE.