Can Ahoy Revive the Pirate Genre?

Come this July, one of Firaxis Games's best titles, Sid Meier's Pirates!, will be two decades old. In that time frame, there have been three recent pirate games that have attempted to bring back the genre: Sea of Thieves, Naval Action, and Skull and Bones. Each one catered to a specific niche of players but ultimately failed at delivering the core pirating experience.

However, I've recently discovered a new game on Kickstarter that aims to shake up the genre with some bold claims. The game in question is aptly titled, Ahoy. and is being developed by Capstan Games. They are endeavoring for Ahoy to be a multiplayer, open world sailing game set in the West Indies, 1780. According to their website, players will be able to dictate their own profession, whether that be piracy, trading, or acting as a naval officer. The game will also feature full-on authentic, first-person naval battles where players command the entirety of their vessel and can even engage in boarding scenarios.

Ahoy sounds incredible just from those points alone. But it's important to remember where other games in the genre failed and succeeded and how the developers can learn from them.

Let's explore Ahoy and compare it to the three previously mentioned games to see which areas it gets right and where it can improve during development. Then, I will bring Sid Meier's Pirates! into the picture and highlight why it is still the greatest after all these years.

Weigh Anchor

Sea of Thieves, Naval Action, and Skull and Bones all have unique gameplay features that reflect one or more of the things Ahoy plans to implement. First, let's go over the bread and butter of any and every pirate game, sailing.

Sailing

Out of the three aforementioned pirate games, I would say that Sea of Thieves feels the best. This is simply due to the fact that you directly captain your own ship in first-person. For solo players, you have to manage the sails, capstan, anchor, repairs, and cannons all at once. Although, if you want to use larger vessels you will have to find other players to help you. That is where Sea of Thieves begins to falter in its sailing. It limits what solo players can sail since there is a lack of AI crew members. Of course, the game is marketed as a multiplayer pirate game which explains the nonexistence of AI crew.

On the other hand, Naval Action opts for a simulation experience by having players captain a ship with a full crew in third-person. During my time with the game, I could feel the weight of the ship and needed to time my movements perfectly if I wanted to execute a broadside with an enemy vessel. Unfortunately, the sailing experience is only present during battles with players or AI. Outside of that you sail in a zoomed-out, arcade-like fashion to different ports or points-of-interest.

Ahoy seems to take the simulation and AI crew aspects from Naval Action and combine it with the first-person captaincy present in Sea of Thieves, thus creating an authentic sailing experience as they describe on their website. They emphasize further that players will be able to walk around their ship and can utilize various mechanics and items to help them navigate the seas. Not to mention that players can also engage in ship-to-ship combat as well as board enemy vessels with their crew. All of it within a wide open-world.

This direction the developers are taking for sailing sounds like a fantastic blend. By having players interact with the game on a first person level in an open-world, it unfurls them to a unique sailing experience that no other pirate game provides, not even Sid Meier's Pirates!

In order for the pirate formula to work, sailing needs to mesh seamlessly with the various aspects of combat, including ship-to-ship engagements, boardings, and melee.

Combat

The game that stands out in this category is Naval Action.

Combat in Naval Action is one of the hardest, but most visually stunning aspects of the game. Broadsides with full on frigates or man-o-wars are on a near cinematic level. Cannons boom, smoke billows, waves crash, and the crew is constantly in commotion. It is truly a one-of-a-kind experience, but it is very hard to master, let alone get to the point where you can experience it.

Recently, the developers of Naval Action implemented some very controversial changes that makes getting into combat a long and arduous task. Before the change, you could jump into the game, grind a bit, and get into your first AI fight. Now, you are forced to start the game by trading goods to make enough to afford the necessary components to engage in combat. And let me tell you, finding or buying those components, specifically involving gun powder, is nearly impossible at times, especially when there are players attacking you who have paid for premium ships that they can spawn at will.

Skull and Bones would have been my top pick for combat if it only had followed the perfection of ACIV: Black Flag. One of the biggest issues is with the way cannons are fired. When broadsiding, instead of firing the cannons all at once, the game fires one cannon at a time. This isn't quite the same with larger ships, but it is for smaller ones. It makes engagements feel so needlessly tedious and boring. It's a literal backwards step from what they had with Black Flag.

However, by far the most disappointing aspect of the combat is the complete lack of ship boarding. Instead of the genuine ship boarding mechanics present in Black Flag, Skull and Bones features a repeating, boarding animation that doesn't even last 10 seconds. It is absolutely ridiculous that a pirate themed video game costing $70, and, first ever quadruple A title, does not have a fully implemented boarding mechanic. Sid Meier's Pirates! was able to pull it off back in 2005.

I believe the reason why combat failed in Skull and Bones is largely due to how there is no direct player control. What I mean by this is that there is no way for you to move your character to engage in duels or boardings. This means that the only way to directly play the game is through controlling the ship, limiting the overall amount of things you could have been able to do. Had they simply copied the base of Black Flag and added to it, Skull and Bones could have been a great addition to the pirate genre.

Ahoy, as mentioned, will feature ship-to-ship combat with actual crew boardings-all of which you can partake in directly. What intrigued me the most about the gameplay is how they plan to handle boarding scenarios. They state that players can direct their crew to board another ship, take offensive or defensive stances, and even specify where or what they attack when onboard. This sounds exactly like what I wanted from Skull and Bones. By giving players these choices, it gives them a greater sense of control over the course of the battle. In addition to this, the fact that it will feature AI crews means that the game will undoubtedly feel more alive and real than other titles.

A quick aside, the developers have stated that they plan to have microtransactions in the form of cosmetics only. This means that they will not have any pay-to-win purchases such as paid ships or weapons. That alone is a huge mark up from Naval Action's monetization methods.

Ahoy gets sailing and combat right, but they also need to make sure players have enough to do and earn in the form of roles and professions.

Progression & Roles

As mentioned, Ahoy plans to bring players into an open world where they can take up an assortment of roles, hang out with others, and engage in pvp or pve. On the surface this sounds great, but it largely depends on what specifically the player can do.

In Sea of Thieves, players have multiple choices when it comes to roles. They are broken down into three categories: quests, voyages, and tall tales. Voyages however are just multiple quests that are strung together. Those three things are then further broken down and distributed into the various trading companies that offer these tasks. For instance, you could go on a treasure hunt, hunt for skeleton captains, deliver goods, and even go on long-form, tall tale quests that act as mini stories.

There are a good amount of things to do in the game, but the issue is when you complete these quests, everything you earn is converted into one single resource: gold. In other words, you don't physically get anything in the game other than cosmetics for your character, gear, and ship-the only thing gold can buy. This is where the sense of roles begins to get lost in Sea of Thieves. Instead, progression is heavily focused on building your reputation with the various trading companies in order to become a pirate legend, which unlocks the Athena's Fortune trading company.

The aspect of roles is much worse in Skull and Bones. Instead of roles like trading or exploring, your ship becomes the literal role. This means that whatever your ship embodies is what you will be doing in the game. It doesn't help that most of the game is designed around combat rather than other non-combative gameplay.

While acquiring new gear and playing as different professions should be a given within an open-world setting, there still needs to be an underlying layer of items that serves more of a purpose in what role players embody. In Ahoy's case, this layer needs to be something physical since the player will be able to walk on their own ship. For instance, these physical items could be containers that are used for storing supplies. The developers could push this concept further by adding in a physically-based inventory system. Goods, supplies, and ammunition could all be visibly seen inside the holds of ships in their exact quantity. Players who enjoy acting as a trader would love something like this since it would give them the feeling that what they are carrying is real and valuable. It's that tangible feeling that will make the gameplay all the more authentic. If roles and progression are simply based on plain numbers going up, such as reputation points, gold pieces, and experience, the game won't feel as worthwhile.

As for Sid Meier's Pirates!, it implements a wide variety of these elements into a more arcade-like experience. But that doesn't make it any less of a pirate game. The reason why it is the best of the best in the pirate genre is simply due to its raw, yet charming character.

The Essence of the Pirate Genre

Two decades later and Sid Meier's Pirates! has remained at the top. It has achieved this simply due to how the game presents itself as a raw pirating experience.

When you start a new game, you are presented with a simple cutscene that explains everything you need to know about your character and their goals. Then, you are asked to mark your name, difficulty, and skill. Finally, you pick one of the four factions to start from and you are taken into the game.

You are then set loose to explore and pursue whatever you want. There are no tutorials, no one way to do things, and no quest markers. It is up to you, the player, to decide what to do. Here are a handful of things you can take on from the very beginning of the game:

• Trade goods
• Capture a ship
• Search for treasure
• Sack a town
• Ally with a faction
• Courtship & marriage
• Hunt down a famed pirate
• Search for your missing family members (Main goal)

The game doesn't guide you on any of this. You are literally free from restrictions of any kind. This is the area where Ahoy can really shine in the genre. It all goes towards allowing players to make their own choices. After all, the players themselves should be the only ones who can dictate their own paths, especially in the context of a multiplayer driven game. By giving the players choices, you allow them to shape the game they play.

However, as developers it is important to not completely cut yourselves off from the player's. It is completely understandable to step in and introduce new features or changes that serve the core gameplay experience. But too much dabbling may meddle with the authentic feeling of open world pirating.

If Ahoy can pull off that rawness from Sid Meier's Pirates! then I believe it will be, not only the best pirate game, but one of the greatest games to have ever been released. I wish the developers all the luck I can give on their journey. I truly hope that they can pull this off.

If you would like to support their development, they have a Kickstarter page and a contribution page on their website. They are aiming to release an alpha build in 2026 to showcase their sailing system which I am extremely excited for.