Pirates of the Burning Sea [PC]

When the thirst for blood and adventure creeps your way, look to Flying Lab come next year. In one of the bolder moves I've seen in the MMO world lately, this developer known primarily for Rails Across America (though the world "known" is probably an overstatement) has moved away from the challenge of beating your economic rivals through constructing the best transportation network in the States and into the pirate infested Caribbean of the 1600s. Not only are they going into traditionally difficult territory, they're doing so in MMO form. Even more crazy is that they're creating a tactical ship based combat game. Players will have to yo ho their way up the ranks of naval infamy in order to lay claim to bigger and better ships to crush the opposition.

For coming out of nowhere, Pirates of the Burning Sea is intriguing. It's supported by some surprisingly good visuals including some immaculately crafted ships of the age with all of the riggings, pieces, and crew that accompanied them. I'll be honest and say I wouldn't be able to comment on their specific authenticity, but developer Flying Lab made sure to point out that all of the ships have been designed from the plans of the time and have been given all of the attention that they deserve. From where I stand, they look fantastic. Gunners work on the cannons, sails move up and down and react to wind, damage is well modeled, and everything on the ship is rendered with real-time lighting and quite a bit of model and texture detail.

This is a pretty important step. Just check out the two pics below comparing how far they've come. Even more promising is that the game ran well, even with several ships on screen at the same time. The one consideration right now is that they brought a server along with them so that they didn't need to hook up to the game online because it's still in pre-Alpha. Having 50 ships onscreen all being captained by a human being in a gigantic naval battle will be a big test. If they can get all of that to run smoothly… well those looking for a real competitive and co-operative Caribbean pirate experience will get your wish.

For all intents and purposes, this game is a lot like a Sid Meier's Pirates!, but a little more detailed and online. Controls for sailing are pretty similar. You can use the A and D keys to steer while the W and S keys raise and lower the sails for speed. As with pirates and any other sail based naval combat tactical games, wind plays a huge part in how the ship controls and comes to bear on enemies as well. As a matter of detail, different ships have different angles with the wind for top speed so players will have to pay close attention to the way their ship behaves.

Wind isn't the only factor in your ship's performance. With around two dozen ships, there are a lot of considerations to take into account when riding into battle. Each ship has various advantages (this means speed, maneuverability, number of guns, number of crew members, and so on) that need to be taken advantage of. For the sake of making things easier on players that aren't as historically savvy as others, ships are divided into three rough categories of Scout (small fast ships), Hunter (maneuverable yet heavily armored ships), and Dreadnought (gigantic tubs with billions of cannons). Captains will really need to take up a role when forming up into a fleet with friends to take on enemies. Smaller ships aren't going to want to go into a broadside contest with a Ship of the Line just as a Ship of the Line probably isn't going to want to try and hunt down a group of smaller and faster boats all by its lonesome.

In this way, it's going to be pretty exciting to see how players form into guilds and groups and form up a fleet of ships with different abilities and assignments. Considering the battles can get so big, it can be deadly to mix a few different types of ships together and use them wisely. I'm not much of a naval tactician, but I'm sure battles will get pretty interesting when all of the 12 types of ammunition start getting fired across the water at other players.