Hello everyone, I got a problem. I think there is no such thing as a good naval game dedicated to the age of sail period.
I think I've played everything on the market with "sailing" or "pirate" tags, but still couldn't find a game for which I could apply the "Perfection" meme.
Let's narrow it down a bit, so we can remove projects like Raft or Subnautica. Or even Sea of Thieves and Blackwake.
I think the DNA for the whole genre was created by Sid Meier in Pirates! (1987). The design of this game shows us the perfect balance of different game systems. Technically speaking, Pirates! is a system of systems. Trade, seafaring, fencing, dancing (God knows why) and ballistic calculations, also known as "sea battles". In a verbal description this may sound as a bunch of unrelated mechanics, but in the end it works perfectly fine. Moreover, this DNA still works great with a different setting and genre. Mount & Blade would be a good example that this system of systems is a load of fun to play, although they replaced a dancing game with the Clumsy Rodeo game (God knows why).
It might be possible that the genre, which was born in 1987, is developing successfully and we will find something similar at Steam. Shall we check?
At the moment I can find 43 games with the combination of tags 'Pirates' and 'Sailing' on Steam. By themselves these tags display too many irrelevant games, like yacht simulators or strategy games about the WWII battleships.
Looking at this list of 43 games we can see that:
1) There are a lot of old games, released even before 2010, like Sid Meier's Pirates! or Sea Dogs from Akella.
2) There are many multiplayer only games
Okay, good old games. Among this category I can highlight the Sea Dogs series (about five entries) and Pirates! (2004). What's the problem with these titles? It's that they're awesome in our memories, but these games rarely played by anyone these days, though can be considered as a standard in this genre. Can’t say I’m that fan of retro-gaming, so I think sometimes, things are best left in the past.
When it comes to MP only games, almost all of them depend on the same mechanic of operating the ship with real people: some are loading the cannons, some are closing up holes in the ship, some are engaged in boarding fights. Good examples here would be Blackwake, Holdfast and Sea of Thieves (as a boring man I prefer Holdfast). What’s the problem? Well, I guess the DNA I mentioned earlier suggests you don’t rely on bravery and stupidity of your teammates, but there are only you and an open-worldn which should be shaped by your own decisions.
Among the remaining projects I would highlight the following
1) Tempest
Could be considered as one of the closest title to original Pirates! concept. It uses the setting of 'pirate fantasy', where ships can use magic, there are krakens all over and so on. Released in 2016, it was initially developed for mobile devices, so the mechanics and graphics are pretty simple.
2) Man O’War
Can’t say this is a bad game. It’s just too much Fantasy Warhammer stuff inside (it’s all Greek to me) + it looks like a skin mode for a Sea Dogs game. Though I really appreciate such a nice variety of weapons to shoot from.
3) Naval Action
Multiplayer only game with amazing visuals. It's pretty difficult to play and it's closer to a sim game: it recreates the fleet of Napoleonic Wars in great detail, takes into account the strength of wind, etc. Economics is very simple and I guess you won’t play this game because of its trade system. Besides, it looks like the development has been halted for a long time and the game launched in an unfinished state (more or less).
4) Naval Assassin's Creed games (Rogue could be a good example)
Ideologically, the closest one to what I’m looking for. Good story, complex open world, lots of travel by sea and by land, economics system. Very simple ship upgrading though - you basically have only one ship for the whole duration of the game. No capturing enemy cities and things like that. Too many assassinscreedish things to do instead.
You can build and manage towns, manage your armies, bombard an enemy city from sea with your fleet while you personally lead the landing party on your boat + there's a story, diplomacy and politics. And Mount & Blade mounted combat system. Also, there is a blackjack simulator. I was a game director on this project and I have only three things to declare – wrong engine, too many features, questionable implementation. We shouldn't have made the design so complicated.
I don't take into account games like Nantucket (battles use the card game mechanic, too sophisticated for me), Windward (too simplistic!), Abandon Ship (a rogue-like game cant be a friend of an open-world game) or Her Majesty's Ship (those damned timers are killing the game), as their genre and even style is too far from what I’d call a perfect pirate game.
I'm sure that pirate games give us a sense of freedom like no other games. Sure thing we can get rid of our everyday life even on Doom series, but the sea gives that freedom a special taste. Unfortunately, it might be that the whole genre is obsolete.
Somehow it reminds me a tragedy of peplum or sword-and-sandal movies. It used to be a great genre back in 1950-1960s. When there was a sort of overusing and since then it has been abandoned. I can’t remember anything good since Gladiator (2000). Games of Thrones is ok, but I’d love to have a 10 000 Macedonian hoplites VS 10 0000 praetorians film in a local movie theater. But nope, such thing doesn't exist.
Perhaps there is just the same combination of reasons in both cases. Sword and sandals is an expensive genre, because you can make a CG dragon, but you can’t make a CG phalange fight (ok you can) - but it's something completely different). Same with a pirate game – you need to add loads of features (i.e. system of systems) to your game, and the chances are you’ll do it wrong.
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