When I wrote about pirate games to play instead of Skull and Bones, I had to give a nod to Blackwake, even if it didn't quite make the cut. The multiplayer marine FPS left Early Access back in 2020 after initially causing quite a stir on YouTube thanks to its emerging chaos. Think of it as a more aggressive, less cartoonish Sea of Thieves, with an emphasis on blowing up ships and fighting their crews. Unfortunately, player numbers dropped soon after and no more updates were received before the end of the year.
Perhaps in response to the release of Skull and Bones, someone from the now-defunct studio is trying to breathe new life into the game, particularly by making it available for free. Get on steam and you can download it now without spending any of your loot.
It's a pretty good strategy for any game stuck in playerless purgatory. Obviously it doesn't make any money in its current form, so keeping the entry costs the same doesn't benefit anyone. Unfortunately, it's likely that this price cut is the last update we'll see for Blackwake. The studio no longer exists, the website is gone, and without upfront costs, DLC, or microtransactions, no one makes any money from it, meaning the chances of getting more support are almost nil.
Funnily enough, a player made one in October Post in the Steam forums stating that they would “pay the developers $5,000 to make the game free to play.” Of course the post resurfaced. Time to pay!
While Blackwake probably doesn't have much of a future, hopefully this means it will at least spawn explosive and sometimes slapstick pirate brawls again. Although there was never a large number of participants, at its peak just over 6,000 players competed simultaneously. Last year, however, it was only double-digit numbers. Til today. Now it's on its way to 400 concurrent players, which at least means you'll probably find some battles to take part in. I'm tempted to give it another go myself.
