Sailing the Seven Seas with Captain Blood
An action packed take on a notorious pirate.
July 2, 2009 - The Spanish Main was once full of cutthroats, thieves and unsavory lawbreakers constantly preying upon ships and settlements for every bit of valuable property they could. Out of the chaos and anarchy on the waves came tales of swashbuckling adventures of corsairs and pirates that became legendary, like the stories of Captain Blood. Rafael Sabatini wrote a trio of these popular adventure novels, and now, 1C and SeaWolf are bringing some of these journeys to live in the upcoming action game Captain Blood. At a recent press event, I had a chance to hack through scurvy dogs and sink a few ships to get an idea of what to expect when the game is released later this year.
Players will take on the role of Captain Blood, the famous pirate as he sails his ship Arabella through the Spanish Main. The game will provide a number of missions that will take players on sea and land for gold and glory. In fact, the section of the demo that I played started out in a settlement that was being attacked by a large force of soldiers and eventually wound up at sea. Captain Blood and his crew, who were on shore at the time (presumably for supplies) find themselves wrapped up in the middle of the battle, and have to fight their way back to the ship in order to make a getaway.
![[IMG]](http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/100/1000990/captain-blood-20090702022446760-000.jpg)
Bringing a rapier to a gunfight...bad idea.
Although it frequently appeared as though he was outnumbered four or five to one, the good captain was more than capable of taking care of himself in a fight. He could perform light and heavy attacks with a sword as well as take up the weapons of fallen enemies to be used against them. This could be extremely useful when you wanted to clear out a group of enemies with a musket or pistol that you'd taken from enemies, or acquired a grenade and wanted to blow a group of enemies to pieces. Along with picking up and throwing crates, barrels or other objects at enemies, Captain Blood could also grab and execute enemies with a single button press. These varied from body slams and stabs to the chest to snapping necks. The instant kill only worked on weak opponents; stronger enemies required you to inflict more damage before you could perform a killing blow. However, you were at least rewarded for your time, because you could specifically input a combo to brutally dispatch these foes. Regardless of how you wind up eliminating your enemies, you'd frequently earn gold from their bodies, which would allow you to upgrade your skills, fighting techniques and attacks.
Now, in most hack-and-slash games, you're alone against hundreds and hundreds of enemies all trying to kill you. However, in Captain Blood, the other sailors and crewmen of your boat will fight alongside you, striking down weakened opponents or distracting incoming soldiers so you can get in a free strike or two. The only thing that some of your sailors don't seem to do is leap onto turrets and attack incoming ships. In fact, at the end of the land mission, the town was quickly being attacked by pirates coming from boats moored out in the bay. Players could take the cannon (which, oddly enough, was akin to a gatling gun cannon) to eliminate these targets of opportunity.
While the land section seemed to focus more on hack and slash action, the sea battles appeared to vary between boss fights and sea battles. For example, if you were sailing on your ship and enemy vessels pulled along side you to fire, you'd have to repel them with your ship's cannons. This would involve tracking the strength of the wind, the range of the cannons and the direction the ship was moving in to successfully land a cannon ball strike. That could frequently involve aiming ahead of the ship to ensure that the strike would hit, or moving to another cannon on your deck to ensure that it was in range of your attacks.
![[IMG]](http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/100/1000990/captain-blood-20090702022443042-000.jpg)
Something tells me that's not a warning shot...
While these strikes seemed to be useful when you're trying to escape, fights seemed to be different when you were actually boarding a ship. Interestingly enough, you weren't playing as Captain Blood during these sections; instead, you were a fellow crewman who climbed on board and battled the sailors there before attacking the head of the craft. The boss battle that I found was creative because the enemy was able to fend off most attacks, but was vulnerable to exploding barrels. After inflicting a certain amount of damage, I was then placed into a quicktime event where hitting the corresponding button in time would injure the enemy or deflect an incoming strike.
Adding in that variety really made the game feel pretty fresh from section to section, and hopefully that will remain within the final version. It's been more than five years since the game was announced, and close to a year since we last reported on the game. Fortunately, it looks like the extra time is definitely starting to show off, so hopefully Captain Blood will be able to finally sail into stores later this year with a new adventure on the high seas.
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