[Sorry in advance for the long post - but the TLDR is that I need your suggestions/opinions on video games about or featuring pirates]
Hey there gaming hive mind, I have a task that I’m hoping you can all help me with…
I am currently researching Video Game Piracy… no, no my emulation-loving friends not that kind of piracy… but the more traditional galleon sailing, swashbuckling, treasure burying, hook-handed, parrot poop down the back of their shoulder pirates, and wanted some help identifying significant computer/video/arcade games that fall into this category. I have arbitrarily picked 6 as the number of games I wish to talk about but am open to expanding the list beyond that should your suggestions deserve inclusion in the discussion.
I’d be interested in hearing about games that aren’t all action and adventure and possibly take a more nuanced look at what it means to be a pirate - less of the seafaring Robin Hoods and privateers hampering the dastardly [insert hostile nation name here] and more of a look at the mundane day to day (not ideal for a game I know), the politics, the impact on local populations, and the victims of pirates. I get that these may not be high on the gameplay designer’s wishlist as subjects to tackle but I’m keen to hear about any games that did try to take on this fight. I would also be keen to hear about games that focused on modern piracy instead of the age of sail stuff if anyone knows of some.
Anyway here are my 6…
- Treasure Island (C64, ZX Spectrum, C16/Plus4)
The first video game that attempted to work with the plot of Treasure Island (instead of simply leveraging recognition from the title alone) and understood the significance of the island in that story. While there are liberties taken with the original text the adventure feels grounded in the sanitised fairy tale/boys own version of what it is to be a pirate. Also… it’s one of my first computer games so I would have included it for that reason alone.
- Sid Meier’s Pirates! (as a series… far too many formats to list)
A broader look at pirates and a great attempt at bringing a variety of gameplay elements to the table. Skillfully mixing sword fights, resource management, political relationships, naval navigation and sea battles, exploration, and fun into a game that I have always considered to be the pinnacle of video game piratical entertainment. A game with an end goal that also lent itself to being a sandbox for messing around. SM’s Pirates really was well ahead of its time when first released and each subsequent iteration/remake has introduced and evolved just enough to allow Pirates! to consistently find an audience at the time of its release… it’s just a shame I can’t see another on the horizon.
- Monkey Island (as a series… another with far too many formats to list)
A series of point and click games that lampoons the world of pirates through insult-powered swordplay, featuring some obscure puzzles, and liberally peppered with laugh out loud comedy moments. What the Monkey Island games did that others had failed to up to this point was to attempt to subvert our expectations of the world of pirates and reframe them in a way that scored points for comedic effect and allowed us to question their portrayal and, occasionally, society in general. The lightning in a bottle was so potent it went a long way to extending the shelf life of the P&C genre. Some 30 years since it first weighed anchor and sailed onto our computers the games are still being returned to, in either their original or remake form, by generations of gamers.
- Skies of Arcadia (Dreamcast, Gamecube)
Flying ships and sky pirates, first seen in the literature of Jules Verne (Robur the Conqueror), a concept revisited and popularised at the end of Disney’s Peter Pan, and over the years found in everything from books and films, to mangas and games… games like Skies of Arcadia. Sega’s sky pirate RPG masterpiece shuns the dungeons and dragons fantasy world of it’s genre brethren and instead goes big on science fiction and pirates. Transposing pirate themes into it’s sci-fi setting allows SoA to feel familiar and fresh at the same time. With battles taking a turn based approach and being split into traditional RPG team affairs and an altogether more interesting ship battle mode which shuns the traditional pirate game action based battles for another turn based system. SoA, along with media such as Edgar Rice Burroughs John Carter novels, Star Wars (think Jabba’s Sail Barge), and Disney’s Treasure Planet, demonstrated a desire, and means, of keeping the age of sail aspects of the golden age of Piracy relevant in a science fiction setting that would typically seem ill-suited to them. SoA played with the idea of the sky as an ocean and as President John F Kennedy once said “Space is the new ocean”.
- Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag (PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Wii U, Nintendo Switch, PC)
Breathing fresh briney air into a franchise that was offering generally diminishing returns from ACII onwards Black Flag brought the kind of open-world freedom that a romantic image of piracy paints to games. Pirates are often portrayed as anti-hero explorers sailing the seven seas and Black Flag delivered on this in a way that encouraged exploration in its players. Granted the improvements were built upon the limited seafaring elements of ACIII but the implementation and mechanics allowed it the rise high above its predecessor. Black Flag, just like Sid Meier’s Pirates, also features nods to, and cameos of real pirates (although liberally splashed with the finest Artistic Licence eau de parfum) to help with its world building.
- Sea of Thieves (Xbox One, Xbox Series, PC)
The latest big Pirate adventure comes from Rare in the form of Sea of Thieves. What Sea of Thieves does is take all that players have come to love about action orientated pirate games and opens that up to a shared experience. No longer are players assuming the role of captain while AI pirate goons do the donkey work as SoT allows a group of friends to form a crew, sail the sea and share the spoils of their bucaneering adventures. Maintaining order on real pirate ship would have been no easy task if all onboard were to not pulling in the same direction and the same is true when playing SoT. SoT plays best when crews operate in a cordinated way, the tap of Xbox pad buttons serving as a metaphorical sea shanty as the pirates strive to achieve a common goal. Taking in more fantastical and mystical elements and folding them into a fantasy pirate world has allowed Rare to capture an element of pirate fantasy rarely seen in the video gaming sphere.
Honourable mentions:
Treasure Island - A 1981 Data East arcade game that I think may be the first use of the Treasure Island name and possibly the first game about pirates too. I have tried to find games from the second console generation about pirates but have so far come up short - If you can think of any games that predate 1981 then please do let me know.
Games with Pirate elements - Treasure Island Dizzy features themes and elements associated with Pirates but they aren’t core to the experience - this game is more of a nod to the existence of pirates instead of being about pirates. Other games that feature piratical theming (in part or across the game) but are not included are Turtles in Time (Pirate ship level), Donkey Kong Country 2 (Pirate Panic), The Legend of Zelda The Wind Waker & Phantom Hourglass (Tetra’s Pirate Crew), High Seas Havoc.
Pirate IPs turned into games - Pirates of the Caribbean, any and all flavours of Captain Jack’s adventures, have been omitted from this list because the games are a spinoff of the movie franchise (which is in itself a spinoff from the theme park ride) and in all likelihood would never have seen the light of day were it not for the film’s success. Other games based on IP licences that have been considered but are not strong enough to warrant inclusion as games in their own right due to their dependence on other media are Hook, Cutthroat Island, Pirates of Dark Water, One Piece. That’s not to say that these are bad games but rather that these IPs are better suited to discussion in areas where they have their greatest strength.
Quick note… I’ve not included Ubisofts Skull and Bones in the conversation as it’s unfair to talk about a game that’s yet to release to the public properly. Obviously I will be keeping my eyes fixed on the horizon for its approach but until then… they’ll just have to remain as a footnote.
Lastly, if you’ve made it this far… thanks! It was really not meant to be this long but once I started I just wanted to get down some ideas and thoughts for others to work from. Anyway, thanks in advance for any help you can give.
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