I couldn’t decide if I should post this to the gaming community or movies community so I decided to split the difference and just post it here since I’m open to games, movies, or book suggestions.

I have an itch I seem to have trouble scratching. I want more pirate stories that involve dark fantasy elements (skeletons, krakens, ghosts, voodoo, etc.) yet there seem to be very few of these. The best example of what I’m looking for is of course the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, but those have diminishing returns. Even though it’s exactly what I want, each movie is worse than the last.

I just finished playing Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew and that was also exactly what I wanted. And I’m unreasonably excited for DAVY x JONES to come out. And yet… that’s all I can find. Those are the only properties I know of that actually scratch my itch. And I’m shocked at how few entries there are in this genre.

I don’t want a straight-forward pirate adventure like Cutthroat Island or Black Sails, or… I don’t know, Muppet Treasure Island; I want something with dark fantasy elements in it. I recently watched a Korean movie on Netflix called The Pirates: The Last Royal Treasure and while it had the adventure/comedy feel of a Pirates of the Caribbean movie, there were no fantasy elements in it at all.

Is there a name for this sub-genre that I just haven’t stumbled across? Are there really so few entries in this sub-genre? I created a [email protected] community awhile back, and I guess I’m really just looking for the pirate equivalent of the Weird West genre. I guess the Vampirates book series meets my criteria, but it’s at a middle school reading level and that just isn’t for me. Maybe I should just re-watch Pirates of Dark Water…

So can anyone here help me out? Is there a better term to search for than just ‘pirate fantasy’? Are there any other movies, books, or games you know of that might scratch my itch?

  • tal@lemmy.todayEnglish
    17·
    2 days ago

    You kinda made me wonder how the “undead pirate” theme developed. Sounds like it might have been at least in part around The Flying Dutchman, though that’s not the only “supernatural maritime” folklore, and that specific story wasn’t originally about pirates.

    Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832), a friend of John Leyden’s, was the first to refer to the vessel as a pirate ship, writing in the notes to Rokeby (first published December 1812) that the ship was “originally a vessel loaded with great wealth, on board of which some horrid act of murder and piracy had been committed” and that the apparition of the ship “is considered by the mariners as the worst of all possible omens”.

    https://fathomsdeepbeyond.substack.com/p/the-flying-dutchman

    As to games, have you played the classic Monkey Island series? It’s not all that dark, but it is pirates and ghosts.

    If you play the Total War: Warhammer games, there are undead pirate factions in the second game’s Curse of the Vampire Coast DLC. You can buy multiple games and use the factions from different titles in later games. I don’t know if that has enough story for you.

    EDIT: TV Tropes calls it the “Ghost Pirate”:

    https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GhostPirate

    Despite the name, the Ghost Pirate trope includes all forms of undead pirates, including zombie or skeletal variants (literal skeleton crews).

    EDIT2: I thought that the Flying Dutchman didn’t involve pirates at all, but WP says that it did become associated with pirates at some point; added reference above.

    EDIT3: Going a bit out of genre, there’s Sunless Sea. That’s Lovecraftian and Victorian British naval stuff, but not really specifically undead and the player’s ship isn’t a pirate ship. Might be close enough in feel to make you happy, though. I’m not really a huge fan of the game, as I don’t like the gameplay much. It’s really about the ambience and feel, but it might be right up your alley.

    • JerichoCross@lemmy.zipOPEnglish
      6·
      2 days ago

      Perfect, thank you! You’re right, “undead pirate” or “ghost pirate” is exactly the type of thing I’m looking for.

      I’ve been aware of the Monkey Island games for awhile but I guess I never knew there were supernatural elements to it. And I’ve never played any of the Total War games so I guess I need to look into those too!

      • tal@lemmy.todayEnglish
        5·
        2 days ago

        And I’ve never played any of the Total War games so I guess I need to look into those too!

        Just to be clear, the Total War games make up a large collection that span many settings and themes (e.g. ancient Japan or Rome). It’s the Warhammer line of games within that collection that is specifically fantasy, and inside that, it’s specifically the Curse of the Vampire Coast stuff that has the undead pirates.

        That’s not to say that the series is bad — it’s been a prominent strategy game series for a long time — but if what you’re looking for is specifically undead pirate stuff, only a small portion of that collection is relevant.