UK Royal Navy Has Gaming Computer Room for Esports on Aircraft Carrier

Decks below F-35B Lightning II fighters and Wildcat attack helicopters, Chief Petty Officer Martin Miller keeps watch over the Royal Navy’s first-ever seafaring computer gaming room.

It’s not his main job, of course. Miller is one of two logistics store chiefs on board the HMS Prince of Wales, the UK’s second aircraft carrier.

Business Insider took a look inside the ship as it docked in Singapore during an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific.

Miller, the vice-chairman of the Royal Navy’s esports committee, voluntarily manages the onboard gaming room, which was set up in February.

After wrapping up a typical day at 8 p.m., Miller tends to spend a few hours in the suite, enjoying robust air conditioning and playing the strategy game “Sid Meier’s Civilization VI.”

“Other ships have PlayStations and Xboxes down on the mess deck so they can play where they live, but this is the first ship that’s got a PC setup like this,” Miller said.

Officially dubbed the ship’s “esports suite,” it’s more like a computer lab for now. The facility is an old exam room fitted with LED lights, a widescreen TV, office chairs, and eight beefy Alienware gaming computers.

While on the high seas, the carrier’s internet is typically only good enough to support simple text messages, so sailors make do with local multiplayer games such as “Halo” and “Team Fortress 2.”

The suite’s gaming gear is sponsored by the Royal Navy, which disburses funds to troops petitioning for official support in a sport. To get money, sports committees must prove their pastime has a large following within and outside the British forces.

In March 2024, the UK’s defense ministry recognized esports as a military sport, saying it valued digital skills associated with gaming and hoped the activity would help retain young talent.

“If you’re a top gamer, or a coder, your country needs you,” UK Defense Minister John Healey said in a September speech.

The ministry told BI that it launched a recruitment plan this year to “fast-track gamers into cyber defence roles,” and that the suite was approved on the carrier to “enhance the lived experience of her sailors and foster social connections.”

One of the crew’s selling points for the carrier’s gaming suite is that it can be a tool for cross-rank team bonding. Mess halls are sometimes equipped with consoles for couch gaming titles like “Mario Kart,” but free access to these rooms is bound by seniority.

Miller said officers and leaders book the gaming suite via email about three times a week for their teams. Sailors also use it ad-hoc every evening while at sea, he said.

Aircraft carriers and amphibious assault vessels, with hundreds or thousands of troops on board, often boast a range of recreational facilities.

The Prince of Wales, commissioned in 2019, comes with ice baths, saunas, inflatable swimming pools, a golf simulator, three gyms, and karaoke.

But with 1,600 crew, squadron staff, and marines aboard, space on the 72,000-ton vessel can be a luxury. Two of the suite’s computers are unused because they can’t fit in the room, and Miller said the committee has a near-impossible ambition of installing an F1 driving simulator rig.

Sub-Lieutenant Joshua Hill, the treasurer of the Royal Navy’s esports committee, told BI that its members have been setting up gaming suites like this one in the UK’s naval bases.

Warships are a different story, and getting a room to build a gaming suite on a carrier was an encouraging sign of Royal Navy support, Hill said.

“A lot of our infrastructure in the Navy is used, so trying to find the space that they can give up is what we’re struggling with at the moment,” said Hill. He doesn’t work on the carrier, but is an assistant logistics officer on the HMS Dauntless, an accompanying destroyer.

Hill hopes this suite can serve as an example of how computer multiplayer games can be introduced to other UK warships.

“The next step is, can we get connectivity?” he said. “That’s kind of the aim for stuff on ships as a whole.”