The waters have been choppy for Captain Blood, a pirate action game that first reared its head back in 2004. It was hit with a number of delays and other issues after that, including a resurgence in 2010 that had it playing like God of War, and now it’s back and set to launch sometime this fall.
According to the “Re-Reveal” trailer via IGN, developers Seawolf Studio and General Arcade are prepping Captain Blood for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and PC. Thus far, the footage appears more or less like it did when it was aiming for over-the-top God of War-style combat, offering a new look at the gameplay in its latest trailer.
You can compare that to the official trailer Fulqrum Publishing shared in 2010. While the old trailer is more chock-full of gory violence, its overall aesthetics are in line with the current iteration of Captain Blood. In the latest description, publisher SNEG notes the “several iterations” the game went through in the early 2000s and beyond, saying, “We are excited to bring it back, combining its original glory with a series of modern improvements for today’s gamers.”
Blast from the past
Game designer Stanislav Costiuc — who has worked on games at Ubisoft, among other companies — provided an overview of the stormy sea that is Captain Blood over at his blog back in 2013. Beyond simply scrapping the original project to move onto a more graphically violent version, previous publisher Playlogic eventually kicked off a legal battle over the Captain Blood IP, among other properties. This derailed plans to ship the game as it was, thus forcing it to miss its promised 2011 launch date.
Now, like a time capsule bobbing up to the ocean’s surface, Captain Blood is back, and we’ll purportedly get to play it relatively soon. A complete build of the earlier game has been hanging around online for the past couple of years, so those who have played that will be able to see just how substantially, if at all, this version differs. Whether or not it’s actually any good, it’s not often we get to see an ostensibly canned game claw its way back from a watery grave like this.
