Carve out a swashbuckling empire with open-world pirate RTS Rise of Piracy

This article is written in partnership with MicroProse.

Despite the name, piracy is entirely optional in Rise of Piracy. You can trade commodities and.. oh, who are we kidding? There’s no way we’re not going full Jolly Roger with this open-world action-adventure RTS, coming to PC.

From Spideog Studios and Microprose (who also published the classic Sid Meier’s Pirates), Rise of Piracy invites you on a grand adventure on the high seas, as you work your way up from a lone ship to a vast pirate armada.

Its huge, open world is set to be anything but dull. You can forge alliances and even become a privateer for one or more of Rise’s powerful factions. Is the potential profit worth risking your standing with the others? That’s for you to decide though, even without your intervention, they’ll still wage war on each other. And if you have chosen to eschew piracy, that’ll lead to blocked trade routes and a host of other problems.

Rise of Piracy sports a massive world, with around 140 hand-crafted islands, spread across nine different biomes. Thanks to its dynamic difficulty, even the mightiest aspiring pirate won’t be short on any challenge. And if your fleet eventually becomes truly, ridiculously formidable, you even have the option to take on monsters and skeletons.

The bigger your armada, the grander your exploits will be. Rise even lets you specialize ships, tailoring them to your short and long-term goals. Want to storm a faction’s capital, claiming it as your own? Load up some troop transports, then team them with enough frigates to ensure they reach their destination.

With huge fleet-to-fleet battles and an optional PvP mode, it promises to be a treat for anyone with a taste for life on the high seas. Don’t let Rise of Piracy sail off into the horizon; wishlist it on Steam here. Your parrot will thank you.