Buccaneers! The New Age of Piracy
Patch 1.0.04 Released: Third-Person Sailing, VR Improvements and more!
We’ve released another update for the free prologue which brings over new features and improvements from version 1.0.12 of the full game. Highlights include a new third-person sailing view, a streamlined system for issuing orders in ship battles, VR steering improvements and much more! Check out the list of notable changes below:
Buccaneers! The New Age of Piracy (Prologue) Version 1.0.04
New Features
- Added a third-person view for non-VR sailing mode. You can freely switch between first-person and third-person at any time while sailing by pressing Tab (keyboard) or D-pad Up (controller). (Note that you always return to first-person when boarding.)
- The game remembers which camera view you used last and will automatically switch to it whenever you enter sailing mode.
Balancing
- The encounter spawn rate is now lower while sailing through friendly regions.
- Your ship is no longer immobilised while repairing in battle. However, each repair cycle now takes 10 seconds (up from 7.5 seconds) at the default Cannon Reload Speed setting.
- Made multiple adjustments to money and XP rewards for capturing ships, selling cargo and completing Bounties.
Changes
- Added a new Orders page to the Fleet Status tab which allows you to quickly change the orders for all ships in your fleet from a single menu. Orders assigned to “Fleet” will be automatically applied to ships you purchase or capture.
- Pressing the Map hotkey (M on keyboard or View/Back on controller) while in a ship battle now opens the Fleet Status tab instead, giving you quicker access to the new Orders page.
- Added an on-screen prompt for accessing the Orders page in ship battles, and moved the Disengage prompt to the opposite side of the screen.
- The “Orders” hotkey used in stealth combat on land now shares the same binding as the Map hotkey (M on keyboard, Back/View on controller) to be consistent with its use in ship battles.
- Added critical hit sounds and sinking/destruction sounds for ship battles.
- Your lieutenant now calls out critical hits against crew and forts in ship battles.
- Repositioned most NPC dialogue panels and a few other UI elements to ensure text does not get cut off when playing in narrow aspect ratios (minimum of 5:4).
- Added a visual effect to indicate the direction of enemies that hit you in combat.
- Added new icons for player abilities.
- [VR] Added an option to prevent the ship’s wheel from recentering itself when it is not being held (Options > Controls > Ship’s Wheel Recentering).
- [VR] Increased the grab zone size of the ship’s wheel spokes to make it easier to grab them without looking or while it is recentering itself.
- [VR] When turning the wheel, your ship now gradually turns towards the desired steering angle instead of immediately snapping to it. This helps to smooth out any jitter caused by hand tracking issues while holding the wheel.
Fixes
- Improved the obstacle avoidance logic for AI ships to make them less likely to clip through islands.
- Added a fallback to force quests to move on if they didn’t advance after completing an objective.
- Fixed a rendering issue with the ocean when using the “Low” quality water setting.
- Fixed non-pirate ships appearing in random encounters.
- Fixed the “jolt” that occurred whenever your ship finished recentering the wheel in non-VR.
- [VR] Fixed the town map showing on top of other elements in the post-battle UI after a fort battle.
Happy pirating! 🏴☠️
BUCCANEERS! is 33% off during Steam VR Fest!
Buccaneers! is a part of Steam VR Fest! You can now get the game for 33% off!
Don't miss this chance!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1148560/Buccaneers/
The sale ends on July 25 at 10:00 AM PDT (GMT-7)
Patch 1.0.03 Released: New Weapons and Combat Improvements!
A new patch is now live for the free prologue which brings some big changes and improvements over from version 1.0.09 of the full game. This update focuses on melee and ranged combat, featuring new weapons, a parrying mechanic and more! Read on for a list of the most notable changes.
Buccaneers! The New Age of Piracy (Prologue) Version 1.0.03
New Features
- Added a parrying mechanic to melee combat which allows you to temporarily stun enemies, increasing melee damage against them. To trigger a parry, perform the following action after an enemy starts swinging their weapon, but before their attack hits you:
- > Non-VR mode: Press the “Block” button (holding the button before the attack starts results in a regular block).
- > VR mode: Move your weapon forwards to intercept the enemy’s blade (holding it steady results in a regular block).
- All melee weapons now have a “Parry” stat which indicates how easy it is to trigger a parry with it. A higher value allows you to trigger a parry earlier in the enemy’s attack animation.
- The weapon loadout chest has been added to all cabins, allowing you to change your equipped weapons without visiting a blacksmith.
Changes
- Blocking melee attacks now absorbs a percentage of the damage instead of negating it completely (but parrying blocks all damage). All melee weapons now have a “Block” stat which indicates the percentage of damage they absorb.
- You now need to hold down the Block button to block with a sword instead of pressing it, so you can block for as long as you want.
- Pistols and heavy weapons no longer auto-reload after firing; you can now trigger this manually by pressing the Fire button again.
- Added new weapons including the Musket, Cutlass, Falchion and Double-Barrelled Pistol. (Some new weapons such as the Sabre and Nock Gun are only available in the full game.)
- Rebalanced some existing weapons to adjust for the new parrying and blocking mechanics.
- Changed the starting loadout in the prologue quest to give you a Rapier, Double-Barrelled Pistol (replacing the Pepper-box) and Musket (replacing the Blunderbuss).
- The Pepper-box and Blunderbuss are now only available in the full game (though you can still use them in existing prologue saves made prior to this patch).
- Added archery-style targets to the blacksmiths which show bullet holes on impact.
- Removed the “lunge” swing from melee attacks and made it easier to chain swings together for more fluid animations.
- Player ranged attacks now play hit sounds on impact, including a separate sound for headshots.
- Weapons in the loadout chest are now sorted by size and rarity.
- NPC health bars now reposition to match the camera height in close quarters for better visibility.
- Merged the “Show ship” controller hotkey with “Set sail/stop” on the world map, as the two actions are never active at the same time. Both now use the “X” button.
- Added a controller hotkey for the “Set Destination” and “Dock” functions on the world map (both use the “Y” button).
- If a ship gets reduced to zero crew, it can now be boarded without being dismasted.
- Improved ambient sound effects at sea, in the cabin and in blacksmiths.
- Crew starvation rate now gets reset when docking at any town, so you no longer lose your entire crew after one day if you set sail with no rations.
- [VR] Adjusted the minimum time between melee attacks on all weapons to more closely match non-VR damage-per-second.
- [VR] Removed the “half damage” swing threshold for melee attacks, so you can now do full damage with slower swings.
- [VR] Weapons now have bespoke holster models, and holsters are now visible on your chest when you have the required ability.
- [VR] The post-battle UI now appears in front of objects and quest notifications to avoid being obscured.
- [VR] Subtitles now appear in front of objects for better readability.
Fixes
- Fixed the world map UI becoming unresponsive when using a controller if the player keeps moving before the camera transition completes.
- Fixed the cannon reload indicators going down if the cannons are fully loaded while the ship takes crew losses.
- Fixed the player ship’s health bar not appearing at the start of a random encounter in sailing mode.
- Fixed the player remaining crouched when returning to the helm if they were crouched when boarding ended.
- NPC melee attacks should no longer hit you if you move out of melee range before the animation completes.
- Fixed melee attacks sometimes not hitting the intended target when multiple targets are grouped together in close quarters.
- Fixed NPCs sometimes teleporting onto your ship when you join a boarding fight which is already in progress.
- Fixed ship colliders not being positioned correctly during boarding; these should now prevent other ships from clipping through in mid-boarding.
- Fixed missing/outdated Russian translations for some player abilities.
- [VR] Fixed heavy weapons sometimes not entering their holster when dropped into it.
- [VR] Fixed press-and-hold not working for boarding and disengage inputs with Vive wands.
Happy pirating! 🏴☠️
Patch 1.0.02 Released: Major improvements from the full game!
We’ve released a big update for the free prologue which brings a lot of fixes and improvements over from version 1.0.07 of the full game. There are too many changes to list here, so we’ll highlight some of the most notable ones.
Buccaneers! The New Age of Piracy (Prologue) Version 1.0.02
Changes
- You can now change the default orders of each ship in your fleet via the Fleet Status page in the Captain’s Log.
- Improved ship AI to make them better at boarding and ensuring their captured prizes have enough crew.
- AI ships will now attempt to put out fires over time as long as they haven’t been hit recently.
- Ship health bars now use colours for the name banner (blue for allies, red for enemies), and your allied ships show their current orders next to it.
- The armour points on ships and forts are now displayed with a number on a single icon (instead of showing one icon per point) in ship battles.
- Added an hourglass icon to represent “temporary” ships added to your fleet as part of a quest.
- Fort cannon sound effects are now louder and can be heard from further away, making them consistent with ship cannons.
- Disabled the land-facing gun battery on Clarence Town’s fort and added a standalone battery on the other side of the harbour to compensate.
- Fixed ship and fort stats not being reset correctly when restarting battles.
- Fixed AI ships struggling to hit forts.
- Updates and fixes for Russian and Simplified Chinese translations.
- Fixed several issues with menu items not selecting properly when using a controller.
- An on-screen keyboard now appears when selecting a text input field with a controller. (Please note: This only works in Steam Big Picture mode.)
- [VR] Added a “Ship’s Wheel Offset” to Options > Controls to allow you to move your playspace closer to or further away from the helm when sailing.
Happy pirating! 🏴☠️
BUCCANEERS! Out Now!🏴☠️
Fellow swashbucklers!
The time has come - Buccaneers! is available now!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1148560/Buccaneers/
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! 🏴☠️
Patch 1.0.01 Released: Localisation Fixes and More!
We just released the first patch for the prologue, including localisation improvements and a number of bug fixes based on early feedback. Here are the full details:
Buccaneers! The New Age of Piracy (Prologue) Version 1.0.01
Changes
- Added missing Russian translations (the Chinese translations will also be updated soon).
- Adjusted font weight, line spacing and scaling of Cyrillic and Chinese fonts for better readability.
- Updated the music which plays at the end of the prologue.
- Reduced the volume of the level-up jingle.
- [VR] The game now displays the currently active OpenXR runtime in the Main Menu. You can change this in the settings of your VR application (e.g. SteamVR, Oculus, Vive Console, WMR).
Fixes
- Fixed the shipyard UI behaving unexpectedly.
- Fixed ship battles persisting after loading a save.
- Fixed a few cases where text was hard-coded instead of localised.
- Fixed some cases where Russian text didn’t fit inside buttons or other UI elements.
- Fixed wrong font being used in labels on the World Map.
- Fixed older versions of sailing music playing in the cabin.
Thank you to everyone who has given feedback and reported issues so far!
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!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1148560/Buccaneers/
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! 🏴☠️
Play The Demo! Watch the Stream!
Join us at the Steam Next Fest event and play the BUCCANEERS! Demo.
About the game
BUCCANEERS! is a classic pirate RPG. Command and customise a powerful warship on PC or in VR and take part in tense naval and land battles that will put your swashbuckling skills to the test.
Ask The Dev
You can ask anything about the game on our Discord server
Wishlist and Follow
Don't forget to add to your wishlist if you like the game.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1148560/Buccaneers/
The Prologue will be available soon!
Buccaneers! The New Age of Piracy is a prologue for the full game.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1631240/Buccaneers_The_New_Age_of_Piracy/
Ask The Dev! Watch the live stream! Play The Demo!
Join us at the Steam Next Fest event and play the BUCCANEERS! Demo.
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About the game
BUCCANEERS! is a classic pirate RPG. Command and customise a powerful warship on PC or in VR and take part in tense naval and land battles that will put your swashbuckling skills to the test.
Ask The Dev
You can ask anything about the game on our Discord server
Wishlist and Follow
Don't forget to add to your wishlist if you like the game.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1148560/Buccaneers/
The Prologue will be available soon!
Buccaneers! The New Age of Piracy is a prologue for the full game.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1631240/Buccaneers_The_New_Age_of_Piracy/
Developer Update: Steam Next Fest, New Story Details and More!
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! 🏴☠️