Ahoy there, you salty sea dog! We ‘ear that ye want to be a filthy cutthroat pirate. All right, but you don’t become a pirate just by asking. You’ll ‘ave to play, the best pirate games! In each one, you’ll have to master the sword, the art of thievery, and the quest. What? That be treasure hunting, ye sea urchin!

So if ye want to prove yerself that yer pirate material, ‘ere be the ten best pirate games that we think are good trials. Aye, even being a pirate in space counts, because swashbucklin’ ain’t reserved for just the seven seas.

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Spaceship-building shoot-o-strategy sandbox Space Pirates and Zombies 2 today officially launched, following eighteen months in early access. No, don’t mind the name: this is an interesting game. You build your own spaceship, right, by snapping together bits and pieces. So far, so spaceship. Then you set out to stay alive in a post-spacezombie apocalypse, however you can. Find resources, claim territory, build bases, salvage, trade, befriend factions, break alliances, and shoot spaceships… all while 200 other AI-controlled captains do the same. A bit like Mount & Blade with spaceships. (more…)

Space Pirates and Zombies 2, the post-apocalyptic space sandbox shoot-o-strategy with a deceptively bad name, has scrapped plans for a multiplayer mode. Developers MinMax Games had planned to add Arena mode on SPAZ 2’s journey through early access but they say multiplayer progress has ground to a halt as they upgraded to a newer version of the engine they’re building it in. After four weeks of work without any real progress, they’ve given up. They are extending refunds for player who consider this a dealbreaker, mind. … [visit site to read more]

The Man will tell you the universe is vast but, from what I’ve seen, a jet can fly across it all in twelve hours. Now that Space Pirates And Zombies 2 [official site] has launched on Steam Early Access you can even have a whole galaxy of 200 autonomous captains squeezed down inside your very own computer. Heck, you can even use technology to interact with these miniature spacemen, building your own mothership to jaunt around space, scavenging for supplies, forming and breaking alliances, and zapping the heck out of other captains. The first game was far more interesting than its awful name might suggest, so this is likely worth forgiving for that too.

… [visit site to read more]

I’m going to mention a name soon, and I want you to resist your gut reaction to pull a dirty face and scroll past this post. This series is good and interesting and you might well like to play it but, well, the game’s named Space Pirates And Zombies 2 [official site] and- no no, come back, come on now. I know, I do. It’s a space shooter where players build their own motherships by snapping together modules then roam across a living galaxy, scavenging, fighting, building bases, and forming factions – against two hundred AI-controlled spaceship captains each doing exactly the same. And it’ll hit Steam Early Access this month.

… [visit site to read more]

Ignore the acronym if you possibly can because we shouldn’t dwell on an irritating title when there’s so much else to discuss. Space Pirates and Zombies 2 looks like it might be an absolute corker, an heir to the sensational Space Rangers 2, built around a living galaxy that exists and develops no matter what the player might be doing elsewhere. Read this and salivate:

Two hundred persistent Captains that are able to do everything the player can, including forming dynamic factions, building structures, controlling territory, and going to War.

If Minmax pull that off, Space Pirates and Zombies 2 might be an unexpected and unlikely true single player alternative to Elite: Dangerous. Space wars! There’s much more, including a trailer and details about randomised ship parts below.

… [visit site to read more]

Growing up in Scotland in the early ’90s, people would talk about Space Pirates and Zombies all the time. Which is weird, when you consider that it’s a space exploration game combining combat with a progression curve that was only released in 2012.

Oh well. Now kids can continue to talk about the series for the foreseeable future, as there’s Space Pirates and Zombies 2 has been announced. It has proper 3D now, and there’s an announcement trailer below.

… [visit site to read more]