The Pirate: Republic of Nassau Review-In-Progress

The Pirate: Republic of Nassau is a sandbox VR game out now on Quest in Early Access, offering a decent amount of pirate-themed activities with the promise of more to come.

Recreating bygone eras is one area where VR excels. In The Pirate: Republic of Nassau’s case, it’s the ship-fighting, base-building, and life-threatening adventure of being a pirate in the early 18th century. Marking the latest entry in Home Net Games’ The Pirate series and the first for VR, Republic of Nassau shows much potential and plenty of content, if a bit rough around the edges.

Set in the Caribbean during the Golden Age of Piracy, you regain consciousness in a pristine-looking captain’s cabin. Briefly introduced to the premise by a passionate letter from a recently deceased fellow pirate, his last wish is for you to usher in a new era for pirates. Your goal is to establish a settlement in Nassau that the world will know as the Republic of Pirates. With no other narrative arc to grasp beyond this idea, it is reassuring to know that The Pirate: Republic of Nassau gives a lot of busywork for aspiring pirate governors.

To build your outlaw haven, you must sail to different ports across the archipelago to pay for useful information at taverns to earn gold and resources to bring back to your earnest republic. The first task is to pick up lost cargo from a downed ship, trying to avoid conveniently placed explosive barrels in your way. The Pirate: Republic of Nassau pleasingly prides itself on its ships being easily maneuverable from either a ground or eagle-eye view. A nice touch is being able to command your crew by raising your hand to make you feel like a captain yourself.

There is an appreciated dynamism to the everyday incursions that keeps things fresh. If you are unlucky, a rival pirate ship searching for the same loot will instantly open fire. Using traps, various types of ammunition, and rum for your mariners to reload cannons faster comes into play when fighting back. The Pirate itself does not feel this aggressive at all times, and these encounters appear well after you have acquainted yourself with the game’s mechanics. If you sink the enemy ship, you can gain extra cloth, sugar, and a few more crewmen. These few resources do not tip the scale broadly, but seem like a fair reward for the trouble.

Within the first hour, a hefty roadblock appears. To recruit historical pirate Anne Bonny to your ranks, you must defeat her in naval combat. Her legendary status is evident as soon as the scramble begins, with her perfectly placed and extremely damaging cannonballs to your hull that will swiftly render your ship inoperable. Considering it is a real hurdle towards making tangible progress, it’s understandable why it feels like a difficulty spike. This forces you to learn to use every tool at your disposal.

Leaning into the game’s economy system is crucial to aid in naval combat. Some items in certain ports will be at a lower price, and coincidentally, in demand in others. With shipyards offering pricey improvements and customizations to your ship, allowing it to move quicker or take more damage, this option must be invested in to have a proper chance. These systems give a fleshed-out purpose to work towards in lieu of a proper narrative. It must also be mentioned that the enemy ship’s hitboxes sometimes miss the mark, and they don’t always seem to work as intended.

An interesting activity that rounds out the not particularly abundant but solid offerings of a pirate’s life is diving for treasure. One of the rumors the taverns can throw at you is sunken ships full of gold waiting to be plundered. Once you get closer with a lifeboat, you can go deep underwater to search for chests, free tied-up boxes of cargo to pick up with your sloop after, and copious amounts of pearl oysters on the sea floor. An unusual way to earn income besides the cutthroat trade market, each find will net you from 5 to 10 coins per pearl.

While not recommended for those suffering from thalassophobia, this secondary action to earn more coin is a brief respite from assaulting merchant ships. What’s more, it can result in a peaceful experience as the sounds of swimming underwater passing by schools of colorful fish is a joy of its own. The lack of a drowning mechanic lends itself well to a calmer dive, even though the swimming itself does not use motion mechanics and moves to wherever you point your view, making it somewhat tedious. To clarify, no sharks will try to cut your journey short.

The life of the outlaw is not for the faint of heart, as trying to attack a smuggler ship can trigger a mightier military ship to hunt you down. Those brief moments, especially when you get the notification for the first time, can be quite nerve-racking. Just improving the ship and making Nassau a respectable pirate haven alone is a massive endeavor due to the many resources needed. Depending on how much you enjoy these repetitive tasks is important, as there is joy derived from slowly bettering your ship and town.

Recruiting all 9 pirate captains to your republic is an ordeal of its own, with specific quests such as attacking heavily armed forts to break them free adding a layer of complexity. John Rackam, Mary Read, and Edward Teach (AKA Blackbeard), among others, make an appearance to the delight of pirate history buffs. For a new game in early access, The Pirate: Republic of Nassau has enough content to keep sailors busy until its next content update.

The Pirate: Republic of Nassau – Current Verdict

Overall, The Pirate: Republic of Nassau has solid bones on this skeleton crew. While it’s possible to count with your fingers the number of available activities, they faithfully deliver what you would expect of a VR pirate adventure. Naval combat, underwater treasure hunting, and bartering in the Caribbean to grow your outlaw society currently feel enjoyable enough.

With the promise of multiplayer, treasure caves, and hand-to-hand combat down the line, I’ll be watching out for this black flag.

---

UploadVR uses a 5-Star rating system for our game reviews – you can read a breakdown of each star rating in our review guidelines. As a review-in-progress, this is currently unscored, and we’ll revisit this review at full release.