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Watch trailer on Steam ↗First Sino-Japanese War
January Desk · Published by January Desk · Official site ↗
9 user reviews — 78% positive (9 reviews)
Last updated 28 Sept 2026
A free and open-source game about the First Sino-Japanese War and other pre-dreadnought battles in East Asia. A miniature-like wargame system, but without 3D models.
Simulation, Free To Play, Strategy, Early Access · 2026 · More free games
Engage in strategic naval combat as you command fleets during the First Sino-Japanese War in this unique simulation experience. Created by January Desk and set for release in 2026, this free-to-play title offers a tactical approach to pre-dreadnought battles with a distinctive miniature-like gameplay style.
About this game
First Sino-Japanese War is a free and open-source game covering naval tactical and strategic layers of the 1894–1895 war between China and Japan. The naval tactical combat system that uses a dynamic time step (e.g., 1 second per pulse) that can be played in turn (like 1 min turn) or real-time. Many of the core resolution mechanics are inspired by and digitally adapted from SEEKRIEG-style naval miniatures rules.
Features:
Historical battle scenarios like The Battle of Yalu River, one of most important yet underrepresented battle in the ironclad era. Some other historical or hypothetic scenarios in First Sino-Japanese War, Boxer Rebellion and Russo-Japanese are included as well.
Adjustable automation levels -- from manually controlling each weapon mount and FCS, to delegating partial or full fleet command to the AI. It's also possible to control both sides by hand at the same time.
A highly flexible editor that allows modification of ship classes (down to penetration and fire-control tables, armor, dynamic), detailed damage, environment and deployment. It should be easy to create custom battles beyond built-in scenarios.
The editor is integrated into the same interface as the normal gameplay mode, exposing all parameters and status data, allowing modifications and scenario generation at any time.
Quick battle in skirmish mode.
In LAN multiplayer mode, players can be assigned to command different parts of the OOB.
Open sourced game mechanism, no more black box and guesswork.
No 3D models—just ship counters (historical or generated line drawings) moving across the globe.
(Work-in-process) Campaign cover land combat resolution, supply, repairing, command chain and various action. The grand campaign scenario give a accurate description of the beginning of the war (25 July 1894) and model the followed dynamic.
System Requirements
Will my PC run this? →Minimum
- Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
- OS: windows 10
- Memory: 16 GB RAM
Recommended
- Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
- OS: windows 11
- Memory: 16 GB RAM
Supported Languages
Latest news
Patch NotesOfficial
Update 0.2.3 Battle of Tsushima
Add Scenario: Battle of Tsushima (Historical scenario of Russo-Japanese War)Add Scenario: Six-Six Fleet vs Combined Pacific Fleets (Hypothetical scenario: the capital ships of the Japanese and Russian fleets engage each other head-on at full strength.)Fix some GUI bugs & resolution bugsImprove tutorial descriptionAn external analyzer (not included in game build, run it from source) to analyze trajectories and export acmi to see them in tacviewUsage:In source folder Tools\\NavalCombatReplayAnalyzer: dotnet run --project NavalCombatReplayAnalyzer.csprojI'm working on a new historical simulation game set in the Meiji era. Its main focus is on political and economic simulation, but it also includes a naval combat system. The naval system shares the same core system as this game, but has a new presentation. I know a lot of people don't like the current "editor-centric" interface, but there may still be some people who prefer this style (I do, at least). So for now, I don't plan to make fundamental changes to this game. Instead, I'm applying what I've learned from it to the new game.Do you think this new presentation looks better or worse than the style of the current game?Read full article on Community Announcements (January Desk)Patch NotesOfficial
0.2.0+hotfix1
Fix parsing bug on systems where the regional decimal separator is a comma.Read full article on Community Announcements (January Desk)Patch NotesOfficial
Update 0.2.0 & EA Release
Game is now released in Early Access.Old changelogs can be found on GitHub Releases:https://github.com/yiyuezhuo/Late-Qing-Naval-Combat-Demo/releasesRecent major work has focused on streamlining the Custom Ship Class workflow. Some additional data, called “Meta Info,” has been added and can be used to generate game data. For example, McCoy-Okun parameters are used to generate SEEKRIEG-style penetration tables.In the Early Access version, the naval tactical mode still lacks few planned features, such as fog of war, but it is already mature enough to play. However, the campaign is still a work in progress and far from complete. For now, players can use Observer mode to watch how the AI behaves and resolve generated naval battles. Campaign controls are expected to undergo a major overhaul, so do not spend too much effort on them yet.Read full article on Community Announcements (January Desk)Patch NotesOfficial
0.1.8 Acc Update - Land Battle, Command Chain, Navy Transfer, Icon Mode and more
Naval TransferNavy Transfer must be carried out through a naval mission. The Non-Fleet Strategic Groups to be transported via Navy Transfer and the Fleet Group providing the transportation need to be assigned to the mission. During the assembly phase, they will arrive at the assembly point (the first hex of the waypoint). The groups to be transported are generally divided into several parts and loaded onto individual; transport ships, with large formation gradually being emptied until they become small enough to be entirely loaded onto a single transport ship. Upon reaching the destination, the groups will, by default, automatically reorganize into their original formation. The navy transfer may require multiple rounds trips. Once the mission is completed, the transport fleet will remain stationed at the assembly point (it's a good start point for a persistent supply mission).RepairThe repair system is inspired by WITP (War in the Pacific). Specifically, damage from SK5 is mapped to a simplified WITP repair model for resolution. (Sample mapping: 1 SK5 Flooding Hit ≈ 20 WITP Flooding Damage Points, or 20% flooding.)Tactical Naval Combat damage effect TrimWhen a ship’s state is synced to the strategic game, certain adjustments are applied to damage effects. Non-permanent and some specific damage effects are removed.Repairable damageFollowing state could be counted as a damage:For example, each max speed offset is counted as separate damage and can be repaired individually to restore the ship's original speed.Different damage types have different repair point costs and priorities, and are classified as either normal damage or major damage. Major damage can only be repaired by a repair provider that meets the displacement requirement.Repair DeviceDamage can be repaired by ports and repair shipyards.TypeRepair Point GeneratedRepair Upper Limit (tons)Port (per level)1000Repair Shipyard (per level)1001000Repair ships have been added to the game, but their repair functional...Read full article on Community Announcements (January Desk)AnnouncementsOfficial
0.1.4 demo-Deeper Localization for Naval tactical & Supply in Strategic game
The UI for the Naval Tactical game is now almost fully localized from English into Japanese and Chinese. The English version has also received additional polish.:Dark theme:Supply System In Strategic Game (note strategic game is still under development and not playable)Land Supply use a ATG-like request/sent system.Transport ships in a group assigned supply mission would transfer supply from source depot to target depot.Read full article on Community Announcements (January Desk)
