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
    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.