After four years of development by a team of three, we’re so excited to finally let you play the full game. It’s been a long and difficult journey, but we’re proud of what we’ve managed to create, and we hope you enjoy it!
The prologue quest from the free demo is also included in the full game, but if you’ve already completed it, you can skip it when you start a new game. If not, we highly recommend keeping it enabled - the end of the prologue is an important moment that sets up the story for the rest of the game!
In the main quest, you get to choose which faction to join after a brief intro sequence, and the game opens up after that. You can follow the events of the story or explore the open world and do as you please - the choice is yours!
As always, we really appreciate your feedback! If you have any comments, questions or bugs to report, feel free to join our Discord and let us know.
We will be on the lookout for bug reports and will focus on fixing any serious bugs over the next few days, so please bear with us if you experience any issues.
Happy pirating! 🏴☠️
BUCCANEERS! THE NEW AGE OF PIRACY is Out Now! 🏴☠️
Fellow swashbucklers!
The free prologue for Buccaneers! is now available!
You can download Buccaneers! The New Age of Piracy right now to get a taste of what to expect in the full game. Command and customise your own ship, experience tense naval and land battles, and find out how your story as a renowned captain begins!
If you enjoy this prologue, be sure to wishlist the full game and check it out when it launches on March 7th!
Ask The Dev
We’d love to hear what you think, so feel free to join our Discord if you have feedback or questions to share.
Happy pirating! 🏴☠️
Developer Update: Steam Next Fest, New Story Details and More!
Fellow Swashbucklers,
We have some important news to share as well as new details about the game's story, so let's get right to it...
Steam Next Fest and Release Plans
We're pleased to announce the Buccaneers! prologue will be playable in the upcoming Steam Next Fest in February!
The festival runs from 21st - 28th Feb and will feature the final version of the prologue, building upon all your feedback from previous demos.
To avoid clashing with this event, we've pushed back the full game's release by 11 days (previously 24th Feb).
The new release dates are: - Buccaneers! The New Age of Piracy (Prologue): 2nd March - Buccaneers! (Full game): 7th March
Development is still on schedule, and we're working hard to add the final touches to the game before release.
Story Details
We've kept the key details of the game's story under wraps for a long time, and while we're not going to dive into all the specifics now, we wanted to explain how things will work when you first load up the full game. Starting a new campaign will present you with this menu with a few options to customise your experience:
First, we've added some options to change your name and skin colour, letting you personalise your character. You can choose different names and colours for each playthrough if you wish.
Next, you can choose whether to play the prologue quest before jumping into the main story. The prologue teaches you how to play and sets the stage for the main story, so you should only skip this if you play the standalone prologue before the full game launches!
Finally, you can turn tutorials on or off to make subsequent playthroughs more streamlined. Again, you should only turn them off once you have played the story at least once!
The prologue now leads straight into the start of the main story, and once you get past the intro sequence (we won't spoil it here!), you will be able to join whichever faction you want:
Selecting each faction reveals more details about their unique ship upgrades as well as some context for why you might want to join them. You cannot change your mind once you join one, but you can choose differently each time you start a new campaign, so feel free to experiment to find the one that best fits your playstyle!
We won't give too much more away now, but throughout the story, you will acquire bigger ships, build up your fleet, capture towns and battle powerful enemies. You will also meet some notable NPCs along the way - some helpful, some less so - as you make a name for yourself in a Caribbean consumed by war.
More to Come
We'll have more news and announcements in the coming weeks as we get closer to release, so watch this space. Be sure to join our Discord and add the game to your wishlist if you haven't done so already!
Happy pirating! 🏴☠️
Buccaneers! Playtest Ends Today!
Fellow swashbucklers,
Here's a quick reminder that the Buccaneers! playtest ends today ends today (14 December) at 18:00 GMT/19:00 CET/10:00 PST!
Any new sign-ups for these last few hours will be automatically accepted into the playtest, so if you still want to give it a go, be sure to visit the store page!
We'd like to thank everyone who has participated in the playtest, and we hope you've enjoyed our latest gameplay improvements! We're especially grateful for all the insightful feedback we received - it's been incredibly valuable, and we've taken all your comments on board.
Stay tuned for more announcements and development updates in the coming weeks, and as always, you are welcome to join us on Discord!
Happy pirating! 🏴☠️
Buccaneers! Playtest Now Available!
Fellow Swashbucklers,
We’re pleased to announce the next public demo of Buccaneers! is now available!
The demo is being run as a Steam Playtest, so you can sign up to join via the full game’s Steam page. There will only be a limited number of spaces at first, but we’re planning to expand this over the next few days once we’ve had some initial feedback.
The playtest will be live for two weeks, so you’ll have plenty of time to participate!
Please note that the playtest uses the Prologue quest, so you are limited to the British faction and start with a mid-game ship and several abilities unlocked. In the full game, you will be able to choose which faction to join and will start with a smaller ship to work your way up.
For this beta release, we are looking for feedback in a few key areas, including:
General Gameplay
The biggest aspect we want to gather feedback on is moment-to-moment gameplay. How does the game feel to play? Is it fun and intuitive? Do you think anything could be improved, and if so, what would you like to see changed?
If you feel that the ship combat is too slow or fast for your liking, check out the Gameplay settings and try changing the ship speed and cannon reload time to suit your tastes.
VR Support
As detailed in our previous developer update, we have overhauled the game’s VR systems to use the more modern OpenXR standard, and we now need to make sure the game works with as many headsets and controllers as possible. In particular, we want to find out if the game works with:
Valve Index
Oculus Quest/Quest 2 via Link
Oculus Rift S
Windows Mixed Reality (any device)
HP Reverb G2
If you have any of these devices and are able to test the game, please let us know how it goes! A few things to look out for include:
Do the in-game hands line up with your real hands? (You can adjust this in-game in the Controls settings menu.)
Do all the controls work as expected?
Does the game display the right button prompts for your controllers?
Rebindable Keys and Improved Gamepad Support
We also recently added fully rebindable keys for mouse and keyboard controls, allowing you to change the primary and secondary bindings to your liking. You can find this menu under Options > Controls > Key Bindings. Feel free to play around with this and let us know how well it works!
We also improved support for different types of gamepad, so the game should now work with DualShock and Switch Pro controllers in addition to Xbox-style ones, and will show the appropriate glyphs automatically. If you run into any issues with this, please let us know (but note that your mileage may vary with third-party controllers).
Please send us your feedback either on our Discord or via the Steam forums - we’ll be keeping a close eye on it and responding when we can.
