Sid Meier's Pirates! Reviews

I had this game on CD-Rom back in the early 2000's and it is just as fun as I remember it to be. You can sail the Caribbean, Pillage ships, Ransack towns, woo the governors' daughters, Find your missing family and avenge your family from the evil villain who wronged your family. Defeat Notorious Pirates, climbing the ranks as you go, find buried treasure belonging to said Notorious Pirates, and so much more. It's definitely one of the best Pirate games I've ever played.

Fun minigames from before it became common. Good exploration, and good history of ships involved.

This game is probably solid for the date it was released over 20 years ago. It's slow and the mechanics for things like dueling and dancing are uninteresting, but depending on what you want to do, you'll be seeing those two mini games a lot. Also, my computer can handle Sekiro, but has trouble running this old game for some reason. I would love to see this game get a Bannerlord type gameplay rework on how you dance, duel, and maybe ship combat as well. I'd prefer your choice of auto run or doing it yourself and having more control during a duel. Tl;dr it's an old cheap game, if you can find for like a $1 it might be worth picking up if you have too much time to kill and your xbox controller stopped working otherwise, I would steer clear.

I enjoy the game... when it runs. There are so many fixes you need (tinkering with the properties, tinkering with the steam.dll, etc.) just to enable it to run, and then from time to time it crashes anyway. Save often and save well if you really want to play. I wish they would remake it so that it would run better.

The classic game. Loved it in the 90s. Still love it now. Sid Meier was a genius!

Classic Old School game. Explore the Caribbean Sea. Loot the Booty. Build your Fleet. Grow from swabby to Fleet Admiral. It'll keep you Entertained for a long time with many play options. I've played since the Beta test and i own the CD, it came with a frame-worthy map.

★★★★★ – A Timeless High Seas Sandbox Sid Meier’s Pirates! is one of the most charming, open-ended, and endlessly replayable games ever made. You get to live the pirate fantasy—sailing the Caribbean, trading goods, battling rival ships, hunting treasure, courting governors' daughters, and building your legend. There’s no “main quest”—you create your own story every time. You can be a ruthless pirate, a noble privateer, a treasure hunter, or a wealthy merchant. The freedom is incredible, and every run feels different depending on your choices and the era you start in. Pros: Addictive gameplay loop (trade, fight, dance, repeat) Tons of replay value with randomized maps Fast-paced naval combat and satisfying sword duels Captures the pirate vibe perfectly Runs great even on low-end machines Cons: – Mini-games (especially dancing) can feel dated – Late game can get a bit repetitive if you dominate early – AI isn’t the smartest Final Thought: This is the pirate fantasy game. It’s fun, charming, and packed with adventure—even 20 years later. A true classic that still holds treasure. “Buy low, sell high, swordfight for your life, and dance for your love—Pirates! is still gold.”

It's always an amazing time! You can play it for a short time or a long time. But it is always a swashbuckling time! Achievements would be fun though...

I don't care what Yahtzee says, this game is a classic.

To fix the black screen issue on Win11, go to game folder Sid Meier's Pirates!>miles>win32 and renamed mssa3d.m3d to mssa3d.m3d.old Game rocks, but 2K should fix their games that they still sell.