Pirates of the Burning Sea Pushed Past June

Well, if you’re looking forward to sailing the high seas in the upcoming pirate MMO, Pirates of the Burning Sea, you’re going to have to wait a little longer. It was announced today that the release date has been pushed back out of June. Citing contract issues, including, “language issues, control issues, and even when everyone’s largely in sync, these things can take a long time (as they have). No matter how much you (and I!!!) wish it, there’s no “just get it done”. There’s working through the issues, clearing up confusion, and making sure everyone’s on the same page.”

So, the big question is, when exactly will the game ship? The short answer is, no one knows. What is the team doing with all this time? Here’s a quote:

“Part of what has taken so long is that I’m 100% dedicated to maintaining control of the game. That’s a very unique position in this industry, and honestly, I don’t think a contract like this has ever been done, so there’s a lot of education that has to occur. And while I know that the length of time is frustrating to our fans, Pirates is a long-term project for us. We have a lot of long-range plans for the game after we launch and we intend to be working on it for quite a few years. So I’m not going to rush a contract in order to “get it done” – it has to be done right.”

What I can talk about is June. Clearly, we’ve been hoping to announce the new date along with a lot of other concrete information and new partnerships that we’ve been developing. A lot of these will be very exciting to you (especially our European friends), and I’m looking forward to talking about it. But I don’t want to leave you hanging while we continue with the contract process. If I knew what I know now, I’d have done this earlier, but better now than later.

So here it is plain: We won’t be shipping in June.

However, we will be expanding the beta dramatically at the end of June. This coincides with us finally having the original version of the game that we expected to ship for R1. It’s a massive improvement over what’s in the beta now, with a lot of moving pieces all finally coming together. We’ll introduce it to our current beta folks, and assuming that goes well, we’ll start the process of inviting people in. Lots of people.

Well, it’s a letdown to those waiting for the title, but at least we know the developers are working towards making a game that will be fun for all. I have to admit to the desire to log in and yell YARRRRR! in a game where it actually fits the motif.