EDIT: The game is far from perfect, but it has gone through and still going through heavy development.
Freeplay has recently been added, allowing you to take control of your own ship and explore the Caribbean, as you plunder ships and do merchant runs. I especially love the addition of locked chests and the skyrim-esque lockpicking mechanic.

Unfortunately, there are still issues with optimization, I have been getting 30-45fps in large towns, such as Barbados.
The jungles seem too large and empty. Adding more dense vegetation, difficult to treverse terrain, different types of animals, etc. (Perhaps hunting in the future?)
Unabillity to rotate the world map, or open the journal while sailing.

I'm writing this review while the game is still in Alpha. It is being constantly updated and new content and bugfixes are being added with each update.

I think the price of 17 euros is too steep, however, I can definitely recommend giving it a try, especially when it is in discount!

My Specs:
16GB RAM
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 2600 Six-Core
GPU: NVIDIA RTX 4070

I do appreciate what this game is trying to achieve, they are trying to re-build and re-create sea dogs with a new engine and graphical state, but this is not it.

After speaking directly with the developers i can see their passion to listen to the community and develop and input features that simply were not possible back in the sea dog days and to build a product over time that appeals to a niche audience that is worth the time and effort to play

The fact that the developers took the time to contact me and hear my opinions and thoughts was impressive.

We now have the ability to port at cities
We have a free mode and walking around towns
We can capture bigger boats
Quests have improved such as the village / tribes actually having little settlements

Their is still alot to do, the game needs a serious performance patch for newer hardware and policy systems and the ability to own ports and fight for them

The ability to build ships and a progression system from a small ship to a first rate

But all of this is on the way and being actively worked on which is appreciated

I have updated my review as the new update came out and they keep developing the came.


What this game needs to be perfect?

- Open world.
- Create your own captain.
- Keep on updating this game - do not make the sequel, keep on fine tuning this one to make it perfect pirate game.


I will renew my review later on and see if some things are added. I will still keep my support to the developers.


"Fifteen men on the Dead Man's Chest Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum! Drink and the devil had done for the rest Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!”
― Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island

Guys, I’m happy for you. While the game is far from perfect, I can see you’re putting in effort. The game is improving by little. I can’t really criticize the game, because it’s only in Alpha stage now. There’s hope for the better. I just want to suggest a few things that would be nice to see in the future.

1. Add more procedurally generated quests and events in the cities. But it would be best if there weren't too many at once. They should appear rarely but consistently throughout the game, so that players don’t get bored of playing the same thing over and over.
2. To add to the first point, in the future, I’d love to see non-linear storylines. Let the main quests have two or three completely different endings. This will greatly increase replayability, and players will come back to the game even years later to try out new experiences. This is very important. Look at games with linear stories and only one ending. People play them and then forget about them. Here, I hope it will be different. I want the game to have huge replay value. Even if the quests aren’t super detailed, they should be different in their progression.
Also, I hope you’ll add several main characters with different backgrounds and stories in the future. For example, a seasoned pirate, a Dutch adventurer, or an officer in the service of England.
3. In the combat system, add backward and side dodges by double-tapping the S and A/D keys. But don’t make them large dodges or even rolls — that wouldn’t be realistic. Just a small hop back or to the side to parry an enemy’s attack.
4. When picking locks and the prompt says, "turn the lockpick by pressing A and D," also allow players to use the mouse to move it. This would make the mini-game feel smoother.
5. When looting chests, add the ability to put unwanted items back into the chest.
6. I’m a fan of the Age of Pirates series, especially City of Abandoned Ships. One of my favorite aspects of the series is Yury Poteyenko’s music. I understand that due to copyright issues, you can’t add his music to the game. But please make it possible for players to add their own music to the game, like in the GTA series, where there’s a separate folder for a custom radio station.
Of course, this comes with its nuances, like having unique music in different cities and at sea, etc. But I’d be happy with just having a folder in the game where I can add my own music. I personally love Yury Poteyenko’s tracks. The game could play it when I’m, for example, on land. But when I’m at sea or in a storyline location or a place like catacombs, the native Corsairs Legacy music/sounds would play.
you may even make 3 folders: sea, land, indoor buildings.
7. Make running the default movement for the main character. When pressing shift, the character walks. Please add an option in the settings to switch it so that walking is the default, and running is done by holding shift.
8. Make it so that names aren’t visible by default. Names should only appear after the main character talks to the NPC. After that, the name will be visible when approaching the character. This would be more logical and realistic. I understand that for many, this could make the gameplay more difficult and might not be popular. So I suggest implementing this mechanic only in the hardest difficulty mode.
9. I could, of course, write a lot more about fixing gameplay bugs, textures, awkward flying birds, and suggest adding new characters, customization options, building your own settlement, resource extraction enterprises, romantic intrigues with governors' daughters, etc. But I think that’s not the most important right now. And I’m sure you already know all the issues and will fix them.

Here is what I could say after playing this game for more than 10 hours.

Pros:
- revives nostalgic memories of the original Corsairs series
- have great potential (a lot of interesting game mechanics may be implemented)
- good graphic quality (but should say that not all the objects look good, e.g. buildings and bridges look too "plastic"

Cons:
- autosaves override manual saves (I stuck in a battle I wanted to avoid because of this problem and wasn't able to load my save)
- game may crash at any time (saving, loading, alt+tab)
- trading system - you can't buy/sell particular goods. Currently, you can just sell all the products from your ship excluding ammo and supplies (I hope it will be changed in future to smth similar to what was in the original Corsairs).
- the fighting system is painful as in the original Corsair, especially when you fight a few enemies at the same time
- your crew's AI is a bit stupid, loves to block and push you right to your enemy and you can't avoid it
- sea battles are too arcade for me
- the jungles are very big but I don't see the reason behind that as they are mostly empty (having big locations just to say "Location of our game are big" is not a reason). You'll need to use x2 time speed all the time to make journeys on ilands faster and more comfortably or spend money to make fast travels by the NPC with horses.
- a lot of bugs

Conclusion:
The game has great potential and may become a successor of the Corsairs series. But there are still a lot of things to be done (features to implement, bugs to fix). I didn't see a lot of innovations in this game compared to the original Corsairs, at least at this stage.

I would not recommend buying this game right now. Yes, the price is good, but the game couldn't offer you a lot of content.
Anyway, I suggest to keep an eye on its updates cause it may become a really good pirate game in the future.

IMO not worth the pricetag.
Combat is janky and 90 minutes in I was still on rails, no free roaming, just run to a, kill people/board ship, cutscene, run to b, kill people/board ship. overloaded because 5 fights and lots of loot later, but no possibility to unload (except throwing away).
Then I had the possibility to move along with the quest or stay to explore a region. I choose the latter, but I could not leave the place after I was done (suprisingly no NPC wanted to interact with me)... I simply did not find any possibility to board my ship. the CTD was the last straw for me and I refunded.
All in all a rather mediocre experience which would be ok for 50% of the asking price.

Overall it has the same feel and nostalgia of the prequels and is very pretty. It's improved a lot since I played the initial demo and I would recommend and I support the Devs. Although saying that I'm just over 3 hours in and I'm not sure if I am playing a full campaign or an extremely long-winded tutorial, the basic game mechanics have been explained but it still feels very linear and restrictive, perhaps things open up later on?

Right now though the linear quests are becoming tedious, particularly as I'm over-emcumbered and having to speed walk everywhere with no way to offload items by selling them as the shops are closed. Most hidden chests are empty - am I supposed to offload them here or will my loot disappear? For now I walk and walk and walk...

Some QOL suggestions would be a map with fast travel to avoid the endless back and forth walking on the island (although of course we want to explore and even get lost some times, but perhaps after the first visit a fast travel unlocks?). No real bugs yet but the camera shakes violently when climbing stairs or walking over bumps which makes you dizzy and I often get stuck behind crew once a battle finishes making it difficult to access the boarded ship. The camera also gets stuck and does not readjust when first entering below deck of the boarded ship making it difficult to move around. The voice acting of the main character is pretty awful, but passable.

Fencing and combat is pretty fun once you get the hang of it, the musket is a little fiddly, seems no need to aim as it seems to make no difference so long as the enemy is highlighted. Ship battles are also fun but switching from aim to auto shoot seems a little finicky. It could explain more clearly the ship transfer process, it seems without a spare captain you cannot swap to the boarded ship?

Overall I would say its a solid start to early access and I'm excited to see where the game goes from here!

Well, after 1 year of Early Access, what can I say about this game, well, after having already played the story and explored the map, I came to the conclusion that this game is very incomplete, with serious problems in many areas and tremendously lacking much more content in several sectors of the game.

To understand a little more, I can say that in addition to many bugs, if you start in the open world and then start completing the story in the middle, the game becomes completely full of bugs\problems, whether in the presentation of the correct ship, or the quest markers or others, many objectives (achievements) also do not work, and so on.

When I decided to support this game (Corsair Legacy) instead of Caribean Legend (as this has a good foundation of what this game should have\be), this is very far from what could be a magnificent game from the era of navigation\piracy... In short, this game lacks almost everything that might come to mind when you think of a game of this genre, such as:

- In terms of the map, it is very small and with few islands and places of interest.
- In terms of boats, which is exactly one of the big reasons why we love this game, I can say that it has only 6 different boats, yes only 6 different boats, and all of them small, of royal navy rating "unrated".
- Forts or fortresses that serve as defense\protection of the sea lanes of the villages\places of interest for controlling navigation and transporting resources do not exist, and content that could be added related to them does not exist either in the destruction\capture and obtaining of items\resources...
- Few points of interest on the current islands, whether for quests\discoveries or others.
- There is no recruitment of captains.
- Creating a fleet doesn't exist either... How could it, if we can't look for commanders for them either...
- Very few random events on land and sea.
- Charismatic characters such as governors, famous pirates, commanders, local people and so on practically do not exist.
- Very weak character customization with few skills and many missing in my opinion, that is, who wouldn't like to customize the character's skills.
- More varied types of climates are needed, as we are talking about a tropical type of climate... where are the storms\thunderstorms in the open sea, or effects on land?
- Very weak trading forms, and not even a functional and attractive UI about it exists.
- Interfaces for the player to understand how alliances\diplomacy exist between nations at any given time do not exist, and lack of more nations too.
- In terms of player skills and perks, there are still some things missing for a game that is about navigation, such as Leadership, Sailing, accuracy, cannons, grappling, repairs, commerce, once again nothing has been implemented.
- The instances created at sea between the different boats practically do not exist and the representation is very identical and often claustrophobic in the movements of the players in the boats fighting.
- Customization shops, whether for the player or for the ships themselves, do not exist. Just imagine, in a piracy game there is no such thing as dressing your character like a real pirate or something else, or changing the color of the sails or the hull of the boat you can, or improving the cannons or something else there is nothing about it, or a set of clothes for the crew does not exist.
- Soundtrack for the different situations doesn't exist or sounds for the world itself are very weak too.
- Special ships or special fleets do not exist, because there are almost no playable boats either.
- Regarding treasures\maps and related items, everything is also very simple and weak, without immersion and surprise, without challenge...
- There is no character customization, and if the game has a sandbox, this should be a possibility.
- The combat animations are weak, and will require a lot of work, just to give you an idea, just watch the character's running animation and it will make you laugh.
- The general interface also needs to be improved, that is, it should be more intuitive, explicit and accessible in all sectors.
- Since we can't create a fleet, there are no fleet orders, such as attack/defense formations of ships, how could there be, if there is no possibility of forming a fleet or even of obtaining captains to command the other ships... lol
- The possibility of having business in the villages also does not exist…
- Performance in tropical forests\in combat and especially in villages could be better, but remains very weak.
- The story is confusing and still very unfinished.
- Naval combat is not intuitive and fun at all…
- The interface should be more vibrant and appealing too, with colorful icons, easy accessibility and direct access to the necessary actions.
- Oh.. and better than words is to add icons\images in all possible systems, such as in the shipyard, where are the pictures of the ships when the player is trying to buy one? or when there is a trade system where are the icons of spices or materials? among others...
- Add abandoned locations to create a base or even a pirate colony... like a house, a small village, a fort, or even an abandoned port...
... and much more missing or still very raw.

You must be wondering, so what is good about the game? Very little... Personally I think the graphics of the ships and sea are good and that's it... It is also worth mentioning that they are improving one system or another, also adding and improving here and there, but still very vague and not very substantial, but they are trying and that is already positive.

Finally, it's a shame that the game has a lot of difficulty adding many things as I mentioned here, and especially in the discussion of suggestions that I created, because this game has the graphics for it, but it doesn't have more than 30% of the content that it should have, compared to games like Caribbean Legend\Pirates of the Caribbean, which have the content, but not the graphics...

The goal here was for them to look at these games like Pirates of the Caribbean (2003) or Caribean Legend and add as much as possible and improve upon those same mechanics\systems to make this game even more amazing, but so far that hasn't happened and it's far from it and development is slow, very slow.

For a game of this kind to keep players engaged for longer, the systems have to be a little more complex, dynamic, fun, varied, unique, special... otherwise it will be difficult for the game to grow and gain more visibility.

I wish I could write more positively about this game, but what it presents at the moment is bad, and if one day they change it, add something, I will gladly change the review to positive, until then good luck.

If anyone is interested in reading some of my suggestions that I have already given to make the game more interesting, and add more ideas join here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1594880/discussions/0/4764333224358515491/

For starters, it’s April of 2024 and I managed to play through the story/scenario in 2.5 hours. Do not buy this game if you want a full fleshed out game. At the moment at least. What you really are buying this game for is for the developers to make the best pirate game that Sea Dog/Corsair fans have been dreaming about.

From everything that is here in its current state, even though it is limited in terms of content, I personally believe it is executed very well and all feels very smooth. The fighting is more comprehensive than I expected and I actually happen to find it very enjoyable. The sailing feels very good and looks realistic. I love the attention to detail that has been put into the ships. The cannons, crew, sails, ropes, everything. It feels right. The enemy ships can also be quite a challenge on the highest difficulty and require somewhat strategic thinking/gameplay.

The gun and sword gameplay on land has been improved compared to a game like Sea Dogs. (Of which this game shares a lot of similarities) The economy is accurate to real life at the time in which the game sets itself in. The dialogue is all text based but there are some nice drawings and commentary between missions.

Overall I personally buy more into the promise of what this franchise can become rather than what is currently there. It looks like the studio is on the right path with this game in my opinion. I can justify financially supporting them from what is there already and what is to come. I’m curious to see what is to come.

It's hard for me to say absolutely. Yes if you are really hurting for a semi-realistic age of sail action RPG, otherwise no.

I played a game nearly identical to this called Age of Pirates: Caribbean Tales about 19 years ago. This is like a prettier version of that, with a more engaging quest system. So it's basically an incremental step up in that case, but brings it back down with jank. I have crashed to desktop as many times as I have quit the game normally, the camera is jerky at times, the sword combat kind of works as expected, and it makes heavy use of a 2x time mechanic because there's a lot of time wasting while on foot.

The thing is though, I LOVED the original game. It was a phenomenal formula, and since this is nearly identical to it in feel, it's still good. We sailing RPG fans absolutely deserve better though. Recommending to support the devs so that their next project can be closer to their higher ambitions.