You'll also be doing favours for one of four nations, as they try to build a foundation for a colonial empire. In order to build your pirate fleet, you'll need to raid other ships, recruit a crew to man your cannons, and duel pirate captains. You begin as a fledgeling buccaneer, with only one ship to your name. We've gone with the one from 2004 rather than the 1987 version because it's a better version of the all the same concepts - not to mention easier to find and get running on a modern PC.

It's a bit of a long haul and one you'll need a reliable crew to get the most from, but thankfully the Xbox Game Pass includes Sea Of Thieves, so the barrier to entry isn't massive, and the community is atypically friendly.įor those who want to take a fleet of scallywags across the Caribbean but don't want the hassle of needing other real players to join their crew, Sid Meier's Pirates! will make you into the next scourge of the seas. Before long, one crew will be sent to Davey Jones's locker, while the other will be gathering all the spoils.

Sea Of Thieves is an open-world multiplayer game, so naturally, there's a deep emphasis on ship-to-ship combat against rival pirate crews. There's also a lot of plunder waiting to be dug up and placed in your hold, before being taken back for rewards and upgrades to. It tests all the necessary genre skills: duelling with swords, firing cannons, and firing your crew out of cannons. The first Monkey Island adventure had insult duelling too, but The Curse Of Monkey Island has rhyming insults, which makes it a far more fitting test for every rookie pirate.įor those buccaneers who have a crew of friends, Sea Of Thieves is the ideal pirate game. Curse Of Monkey Island includes a part where you sail the seas with your crew, finding pirate ships to raid, before engaging the captain of those ships in a duel of swordplay and puns. We've gone with The Curse of Monkey Island because it best combines the humour the series is known for, while also having the best representation of bein' a pirate.Īs any self-respecting pirate would tell you, you'll need the gift of the gab. The best pirate game to start off with has to be one of the Monkey Island series, and for us, it's a tight toss-up between the first three games.

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