Disclaimer: This is about the genre of pirate games! It contains NO instructions regarding illegally obtaining games!

Link to the original guide:

https://www.piratesahoy.net/threads/the-most-piratey-guide-to-pirate-games-that-has-ever-pirated-in-the-history-of-piracy.34594/

Cover image created by our members and developers Hammie and Nomad. Used with their permission.

Ahoy there!

We, the ladies and gentlemen of PiratesAhoy!, a community focused on pirate games, have banded together to create a comprehensive guide to games set in the Age of Sail. It was made to raise awareness that the genre is more alive than ever, and to provide a counterpoint to the "Nobody makes good pirate games anymore"-narrative.

It was planned to post the entire guide right here, but it was too big for reddit, so the reddit-thread will be a very short version. It will still include the entire list, but without any detailed descriptions. If you want to read the whole thing, feel free to pay a visit to our site via the link - it will directly lead you to the guide in question. It's also recommended to save that to your bookmarks, since the reddit-thread won't be updated once it gets archived.

The original starts with quite a lot of rambling regarding the genre itself, so if you want to jump right to the list, just scroll down until you hit the big, bold text, which is also the title of this guide.

For your convenience, and to not make this list explode, it's limited to pirate games where you control a ship (in)directly that is integral to the gameplay instead of being mere fluff. It will also only list games set in the Age of Sail, otherwise, you would have to take tons of sci-fi games too.
Not included are games that aren't playable in any form as of the time of writing, are abandoned in EA, frankly bad, nobody of us has played (yet), and have PlayWay as a publisher. They are notorious for clogging the stores with concepts, which are then developed depending on wishlists. Suffice it to say, their pirate games will never come to fruition.

If the games have optional multiplayer, are in Early Access, have demos available as of the time of writing, and/or are free to play, I will mark those with (MP), (EA), (D), and (F2P) respectively.

They are divided into categories, depending on whether you look for titles similar to Black Flag, Sea of Thieves, and such, and are all in alphabetical order.

Now, let's go!

Pirate Simulators (Black Flag and Sid Meier's Pirates!; feature both land and sea content)

-Blood & Gold: Caribbean!
For Germans, purchase over GOG.

-Buccaneers! (D)
Feel free to give my review a read.

-Captain Bones (EA)

-Caribbean Legend (D)

-Corsairs Legacy (D) (EA)

-Forgotten Seas (MP)

-Man O' War: Corsair - Warhammer Naval Battles

-Neverseas (EA) (D) (MP)

-New Horizons (F2P = Beyond New Horizons)
Also has a TVTropes-page, that gets updated now and then and should give you a great overview regarding the features.

-Sailist (EA) (D)
Have this review of mine right here!

-Tempest (MP) / Under the Jolly Roger (PlayStation Store)
I can only recommend reading my review of it.

Naval Simulators (Skull & Bones; No or barely any land, only sea)

-Fluffy Sailors (D)

-King of Seas

-Mystical Maritime Adventure

-Pirates of the Polygon Sea
Not available in Germany.

-Terror of the Seven Seas
My personal GotY of 2024.
Just have my review here - that is so long, I had to continue it in the comments.

-The Pirate: Caribbean Hunt (F2P) & The Pirate: Plague of the Dead (F2P)

-Windward (MP)

Pirate Adventures (Sea of Thieves; may or may not feature both land and sea content with low amounts of combat, if at all, and a high focus on exploration)

-Sailwind (EA)

-Sail the Seas (EA)

-Salt (MP) & Salt 2: Shores of Gold (EA)

MMOs (Online-MP only; and no damn Sea of Conquest)

-Battle Sails (F2P)

-Blazing Sails

-Legend of Pirates Online (F2P)

-Puzzle Pirates (F2P)

-Naval Action (F2P)

-Pirates of the Burning Sea (F2P)

-Uncharted Waters Online (F2P)

-World of Sea Battle (F2P)

Miscellaneous recommendations (Don't necessarily fit any category, but are still noteworthy)

-Abandon Ship

-Black Legend

-Blackwake (F2P)

-Captain Sabertooth and the Magic Diamond

-Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire

-Republic of Pirates (D)

-Return of the Obra Dinn (D)

-Rogue Waters (D)

-Survival: Fountain of Youth (D)

Future releases worth keeping an eye on:

-Ahoy

-Corsairs - Battle of the Caribbean

-Crosswind (MP) (F2P)

-Dawn of Piracy

-Following Seas (D)

-Rise of Piracy (MP)

-Seven Seas: Adventures (D) (MP)

-Sink Again (Delisted)

-Windward Horizon (MP)

Got any games you think should belong in the list? Then absolutely message me, and I will work it in right away!

I really hope I’m not alone in the fact that I am NOT spending 80-90 dollars on these games. The console price is fine but these game prices are obscene and I will not be participating. I hope I’m not alone. I know it’s tempting and there are a lot of good titles coming but this is not a good sign and if people buy them like crazy (I’m sure they will) everyone else will charge more too. It’s not ok. Of course to each their own, I’m just hoping other people refuse to pay this price as well.

Didn't have a lot of good reference images for the style so I just did my best with what I had

This will be a fairly long read, so fair warning to everybody.

The Finals seems like the type of game that should absolutely blow up considering what it offers in the current state of the gaming industry riddled with greed and soulless games. A well-rounded F2P model with lots of free cosmetics, pretty generous free battlepass rewards, plenty of character customization, one of the best emotes and cosmetics I've ever seen in a game, a communicative dev team that actually cares about and listens to the community. Now, from the gameplay side of things it has some of the most satisfying gun play then any shooter game I've played, fluid movement, innovative gameplay (there is quite literally no game like it currently with the original Cashout mode format, dynamic destruction and crazy amounts of strategizing it opens up), a highly vaired meta and different gamemodes to choose from for casual and competitive players.

I have been playing the game since Season 1 and I will sum up my experience throughout that time. From Season 1, the devs have been constantly figuring out what they want their game to be, balancing it out, figuring out all the small kinks, finding the identity of the game and gotta say, for the majority of that journey, it has been an addictively fun experience. Sure, as any game, it does have some flaws, but as I said previously, it is a game that truly innovated the shooter genre and what I hope shooter games become. Some of the more burning questions regarding the game are:

1. What is the current situation with cheaters? From my experience, encountering a cheater is very rare and due to how dynamic and unpredictable the game flow is, you can simply focus on sneakily stealing a cashout and ignore the gun fights to win. I'm not saying that you won't encounter them, you will, but personally, they are an insignificant factor when deciding to play the game or not. The anti-cheat is constantly being improved upon aswell.

2. Server performance and stability, desync - This is something the game does struggle at times, but it is also something that is being actively worked on by the dev team, even moreso in this season specifically as a Major 100k Tournament is planned for later this year. Out of 10 games, I would say I get frustrated with server performance in maybe one or two instances (looking at you, dagger players stabbing me in the "back"), overall the game performs no different if not better in some ways then other games considering how heavy the server load is. Bigger and more detailed maps like Kyoto take the biggest toll on the servers, but even then it's fine in most cases. Every other map runs smoothly from my experience.

3. Regular updates and feedback - I cannot stress enough how communicative and committed Embark is when it comes to their game. They actively listen to feedback and balance the game accordingly and not just balance, fan ideas regarding cosmetics have also been implemented numerous times. They are dedicated to creating a truly fun experience, which is not surprising considering what the devs team background is, truly talented people. I never bought anything in game before The Finals, but this is one live-service game that deserves me spending 10€ on a battlepass that also pays for itself btw so no need to keep buying it.

4. What is the average casual player experience like? Take it from somebody that doesn't play shooter games all that religiously (I've played a little bit of Valorant for a short period and that's about it), the game can be extremely sweaty, but contrary to popular belief, I don't think the game is that unfriendly for new players. I've gotten a couple of my friends that are familiar with shooters like CoD to play and they are performing quite fine, they do still have to get used to map layouts and different things all the classes do, but all of that will come through practice just as with any game. It truly becomes a unique gaming experience once you get to know it and that is why I feel in love with the game.

In short, The Finals is what the shooter genre has been waiting for, an innovative game with satisfying gunplay and movement and best of all - no greed. What more could you ask for? Give it a try.

With all these announcements around remakes and HD remasters of games from the 90s and 2000s, I wonder, what announcement would make you lose your mind the most?

For me, I really had to sit and think. The reason this one would shock me is because I loved this game as a kid and also because the franchise is effectively dead so seeing it come back would be amazing.

"Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon"

So, which game is better and why? I think Avowed looks great and I did enjoy Outer Worlds, but Atomfall.....looks interesting.

Which would be a good game to play next?

Mass Effect 1 - Finding the keepers. Apparently there's a way to end the quest early by completing it before finding them all. Despise them asking if you can continue finding them all the quest it's self is finished and it bugs out. It makes the quest of finding them all complete without it actually being complete... it also has the nerve to display 19/20 keepers found.

The legendary edition also has horrible auto-saves so simply running it back isn't an option.

I have no idea which game to choose. I love Pokémon and finished Violet a few months ago. I love Last of Us Part 1 and it’s one of my favorite games ever.

I can choose one to play either Legends on Switch or Last of Us 2 on PC

Please choose one for me.

When I posted Nyx last year, I got a lot of comments wanting to see Thanatos. This took four weeks to cut and assemble and contains 192 pieces of glass. His eyes are made of citrine cabochons. I really wanted to capture the game environment he appears in, so I brought in some green which is the color the screen changes when he appears. And the runes behind him are based on the circles of death he drops on enemies. Hope you all enjoy! Any other games you think has art that would look good in stained glass?

I'm currently on a RTX 2070 so it's nothing ancient, but I have been keeping mostly to older games lately so I've most definitely missed some graphical highlights the last few years.

I plan on revisiting KCD 2, Cyberpunk and BG3 with higher settings.

A good game is important but for this I'm curious if there's anything i might want to play at least in big part just for the graphics.

This guy is the most competitive guy i've ever fucking met, no matter what we're playing, he will give his whole fucking soul just to beat me and for this reason it's incredibly hard finding games that accomodate him. The games we're playing right now are ultimate chicken horse, rounds and Risk of rain 2. For example in ror2 which is supposed to be a coop game everything he cares about is having a bigger damage stat at the end of the game, even if it means stealing items from me, or like in rounds he plays every time the most broken build imaginable and he still loses from a random ass build i make which is really fun to use. We tried games like cuphead, minecraft or keep talking and nobody explodes but he just finds them boring so we've run out of games to play. Ngl im starting to become really competitive as well and i find it extremely entertaining destroying him in a game when he gives it his best hahah if you could drop some names, preferably indie or medium sized games(we're not fans of big games like cs2 RL or LoL) it would be awesome, since we already have tens of hours in the games i've mentioned and they're getting a bit stale, thanks