The 10 BEST Pirate Video Games
“Sea of Thieves” (2018)
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Though it had a difficult launch, “Sea of Thieves” has built up a loyal player-base over the years thanks to Rare’s commitment to adding new content. Few games promise complete freedom in the open seas, but in “Sea of Thieves”, you can take your ship and sail anywhere on the map to seek your fortune. Each session, most of your resources start from zero, and you quickly build up your reputation as a legendary pirate. But the more loot you gather, the bigger a target you become to your fellow pirates; soon, it won’t be just the skeletons and sea monsters you need to watch out for. Everybody will be trying to take you down and get that pirate gold for themselves.
“Pirates: The Legend of Black Kat” (2002)
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One of the best pirate games of the PS2 era, “The Legend of Black Kat” follows a female pirate, Kat de Leon, as she tries to live up to her mother’s legacy and avenge her father’s death. Drawing heavily from “Tomb Raider”, Kat journeys to islands to unravel their secrets and dig up all the buried treasure. Like all good pirate games, there are both segments on land, where you battle with rival pirates and local wildlife, and naval battles at sea – including some very impressive boss battles for the time. It’s not a perfect game by any stretch, but is a fun romp through Caribbean clichés that laid the groundwork for some of the greats that followed.
“Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros’ Treasure” (2007)
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A critical darling but a commercial flop, you’d be forgiven for having skipped “Zack & Wiki” back when launched on the Wii. Our heroes encounter the talking skull of Captain Barbaros, who promises them riches beyond measure if they put him back together. Surprise, surprise, Barbaros can’t be trusted, and Zack and Wiki ultimately need to destroy him again. What makes this game memorable is its imaginative gameplay, as Wiki is used to transform enemies into useful tools by ringing him like a bell. You then earn points based on how well you perform the various motion gestures with the Wiimote, which build up Zack’s reputation as a pirate legend.
“Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End” (2016)
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Though you do very little sailing in this game, aside from the bombastic, opening speedboat chase, “Uncharted 4” is enamoured with the long legacy of the high seas. You’re following in the footsteps of the legendary pirate Henry Avery, who disappeared in the seventeenth century along with the spoils of the lucrative Gunsway Heist. Avery is eventually traced to the mythical pirate colony Libertalia, which is very real in “Uncharted 4” and located on an isolated island near Madagascar. The violent demise of Libertalia is contrasted with the idyllic, tropical island the gang ends up on, as they explore the vast, pirate mansions and unearth the downfall of this early utopia.
“Lego Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game” (2011)
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It was only a matter of time until the beloved movie franchise, based on the equally beloved theme park attraction, got its own video game. It covers the first four movies with typical, Lego humor, and added swordplay into the combat to give it a unique flavor. And being a Lego game, it’s one of the few pirate adventures out there that can be played fully co-op – pirates don’t sail the seas alone, after all. If you like the movies – and it’s impossible not to – you’ll enjoy this game a lot, though as far as the “Lego” series goes, it doesn’t reinvent the wheel. Then again, perhaps it doesn’t need to. “Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire” (2018)
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Become the herald of death and command your own ship in this sequel to 2015’s beloved original. Obsidian massively expanded on the first game by giving you a ship and letting you set sail across the Deadfire Archipelago, a huge map that puts a fantasy spin on Caribbean islands. You have an over-arching story about the machinations of the gods, as well as the political manoeuvrings of the various companies and civilizations interested in the islands and their resources. All this makes for an extremely deep role-playing game that’s just as good as you would expect from Obsidian.
“Elite Dangerous” (2014)
It’s not just the oceans that succumb to piracy in fiction. Space pirates are their own genre, and they’re just as fun. “Elite Dangerous” is one such game, a huge, multiplayer experience in which you have the entire Milky Way to explore. There are plenty of ways to make money and improve your gear in “Elite Dangerous”, and one of those routes is piracy. If you don’t want to be a pirate, you’ll have to work hard to avoid the in-game griefers, who have done particularly nefarious things over the years. One group of space pirates even started scamming players and forcing them to work in an outer space gulag.
“Skies of Arcadia” (2000)
We had pirates in space, but what about pirates in the air? “Skies of Arcadia” was acclaimed when it released, but it may have been doomed by releasing on the Dreamcast and the GameCube – both consoles that undersold. You’re playing as Vyse, the leader of a ragtag band of sky pirates going up against an evil empire. In typical, JRPG fashion, the plot is long and full of twists and turns, as you sail the skies in search of various MacGuffins. Easily one of the best and most underrated RPGs ever made, if you’re able to play “Skies of Arcadia” or its GameCube port but haven’t gotten around to it, now is the time.
“Monkey Island” series (1990-2022)
Known for their meta, off-kilter humor, the “Monkey Island” games have had a cult following for decades. Born during a golden age of point-and-click adventure games, “Monkey Island” follows Guybrush Threepwood on his quest to become the most notorious pirate in the Caribbean. The puzzles in “Monkey Island” are known for their difficulty, with the first games releasing before every solution was available on the internet. Adventure games went out of fashion but the series came back from the dead in 2022 with “Return to Monkey Island”, a game that set out to finally tell us, once and for all, what the “Secret of Monkey Island” was in the first place.
“Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag” (2013)
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Who knew back in 2007, that this fledgling franchise would eventually give us one of the greatest pirate games, and deepest naval combat systems, in gaming history? Naval warfare is a hallmark of “Assassin’s Creed” now, first appearing in “III” and rearing its head as recently as “Odyssey”. But it reached its apex in “Black Flag”, in which sailor Edward Kenway is unleashed onto the Caribbean, from Haiti to Tulum, to seek his fortune. Along the way he befriends many of history’s legendary pirates; Blackbeard, Anne Bonny, Mary Read, Charles Vane, Benjamin Hornigold, end even Black Bart. The sailing was a blast in “Rogue”, too, though its short length and double release with “Unity” meant it failed to live up to “Black Flag’s” lofty heights. Let us know in the comments which game makes you feel the most like a devil of the high seas!
