Publisher Kalypso has spent decades nurturing the Port Royale series, recently re-thinking and modernising the franchise entirely with Tortuga – A Pirate’s Tale. Every title has been an improvement over the last, with later entries even finding their way to consoles. It has taken a long time for the franchise to get where it is now…only for Republic of Pirates to muscle in and deliver the kind of deep and polished experience long time Port Royale fans have likely long desired. Nothing like a spot of friendly competition, eh?
Managing to avoid grounds for plagiarism, Republic of Pirates’ premise differs slightly. Kalypso’s seafaring series had a focus on establishing trade routes, whereas Republic of Pirates involves conquering the seas by taking over islands, one at time, establishing settlements while building an armada to protect the islands under your control. This journey begins in the safety of a gentle cove, before eventually creating a fleet to spread across the entire map. The game world isn’t just populated by rival pirate factions, who patrol the seas and will occasionally test your defences, but also Spanish, French, and British vessels ripe for plundering.
Essentially, it’s a settlement builder with naval combat – complete with a revenge-driven story to become entangled in, later involving choosing sides for assistance when the time comes to head into hostile territory.
Oddly enough, the building aspect appears to use Kalypso’s Tropico series for its inspiration, featuring a similar UI and sense of economic growth. Using limited resources (i.e, wood) islands are established by placing a dock before building huts, fishing wharfs, a marketplace, defences, and farms to grow sugar, hemp and cotton. Workers have needs, and so it’s essential to make sure things like rum and food production are kept running smoothly, all the while keeping stocks of wood, rope and cotton in steady supply so that you can expand and conquer the next island.
Over time, citizen’s needs evolve, going from being content with a brothel to demanding a tavern, to even requesting fine clothes. Buildings can be upgraded too, but only if all demands have been met – something I somehow overlooked, resulting in a spot of head scratching.
Establishing a settlement is time consuming, especially when starting anew and following the step-by-step tutorial. From thereon, the experience is objective based, with a list of quests present on screen. This helps to keep things focused, although it can be tricky to work out what’s halting progress, such as a resource currently unavailable or a lack of skilled workers. As this is the console version, the controls take a while to master too, using secondary radial wheels and a construction menu placed along the bottom of the screen. The top of the screen has a breakdown of available resources and workers, some of which are island specific. I have no qualms in admitting that it took a few hours to work out what everything relates to.
Naval combat is real-time, with ships and defence towers firing automatically. This leaves you to order units to protect ports, attack enemy docks, or send them out to collect wreckage from sunken ships. The tactical map shows every area uncovered so far, along with whereabouts of patrols. Optionally, the fleet can be commanded from here. Every ship must be appointed a captain – demanding a small fee – who will level up upon gaining experience. I found the difficulty level curious lax, in the way that it’s possible to send a fleet out to attack a dock and return to base mid-battle to repair before carrying on the assault, often with no reinforcements.
Republic of Pirates’ focus on establishing settlements – which soon grow into the size of small towns – and expanding your reach across the map makes for an engaging pursuit, and it definitely feels like a richer experience for being a settlement builder first and a naval sim second. While the joypad controls become manageable over time, I was still left thinking that the PC version is perhaps the best way to play, aided by a keyboard and mouse set-up. This Xbox Series version is also prone to crashing every hour or so (auto-saves occur regularly, thankfully) so it clearly needs a patch.
If the rum swigging pirate life ever calls, this is a very good option, with campaign that demands your attention at every turn for a good dozen hours. Hopefully it’ll set sail for the Switch 2, as it seems ideal for the enhanced Joy-Cons.
Crazy Goat Games’ Republic of Pirates is out now on PS5 and Xbox Series. A PC version launched in 2024. Published by PQube.