Story

• As a boy, you watch as the evil Marquis de la Maltalban breaks into your house and takes your family prisoner.
• Luckily you escape, and ten years later you begin your quest for revenge and the search for your family.
• Once you take on the life of a pirate it is your choice as to how to conduct your career.
• You can be a heroic pirate, rescuing your family, tracking down criminals and completing the path towards revenge.
• Or, you can raid every ship you see, destroy towns and villages, and steal every treasure you can find.
• Be aware though, your time is not unlimited as a pirate.
• You will start your career in excellent health at a young 20 years of age.
• But, as time moves on, your skills will diminish, and eventually you will be forced to retire.
• Overall the background story is basic and cliché, but the freedom to choose your path and do what you want is ultimately what makes the game so enjoyable.

Gameplay

• The gameplay in Pirates is very open ended allowing you the freedom to go where you want and do what you want.
• You start by picking a difficulty level, a skill, and the era that you want to play in.
• There are five difficulty levels at which to play.
• A skill gives you an advantage with a certain portion of the game.
• You can get advantages to sword fighting for your duels, medicine to help you stay fit longer, charm to help you with the ladies, as well as others.
• Each era has a different layout of cities and the countries that control them.
• Some are harder than others for certain types of gameplay.
• For example it’s hard to side with the British, and try to take over the Spanish in a Spanish controlled 1600.
• Once you are ready to set sail you’re on your own.
• You travel from port to port where you have a variety of different options.
• Visit the governor to get valuable information about who they are at war with and who has alliances.
• You might even catch the eye of the governor’s daughter.
• Visit the tavern where you can recruit new crew, get information about the whereabouts of your family members, criminals or notorious pirates, and even maybe purchase special items.
• Visit the merchant where you can buy different goods at low prices or sell goods plundered from attacking enemy vessels.
• Visit the shipwright where you can repair your fleet or upgrade your ships abilities.
• If needed you can also divide the plunder.
• After a long voyage of many months your crew will start to get restless, and demand that you divide the plunder.
• The percentage of your keep is determined by the difficulty level you chose.
• After dividing the plunder, several months will pass before you set out on a new voyage.
• Each time you set out on a new voyage, you’ll be able to choose a new difficulty level one level higher or lower than your current level.
• Besides traveling between ports, you can also stop at Pirate havens, Jesuit missions, and Indian villages.
• There are a variety of different goals that you can try to achieve on your voyages; some involve advancing the main storyline while others do not.
• Rescue your captured family members.
• Seek revenge by tracking down the Marquis de la Maltalban.
• Be promoted to Duke for one of the four nationalities in the game.
• Spanish
• English
• Dutch
• French
• Court the daughters of the many different governors.
• Eliminate the top 10 notorious pirates.
• Find a pirate’s Buried Treasure.
• Find lost cities.
• Bring to justice wanted criminals hiding away in different Ports.
• Plunder all the cities of your enemies.
• But no matter what goals you achieve, the overriding theme is the same:
• Achieve the most wealth that you can during your pirate career.
• After the end of your career your total wealth will be calculated and saved.
• If you rank high enough, your score might be featured on Xbox Live.