Pirates of the Burning Sea: Power & Prestige is a Pirate-themed MMORPG set in 1700s Caribbean and Florida. Gameplay consists of both on foot swashbuckling and ship battles on the high seas as one of four factions: Britain, France, Spain, or the Brethren of the Coast (i.e. pirates). As of November 2010 it is Free-to-Play. Originally published by Sony Online Entertainment, it was dropped from their service in late 2012. From February 2013 it was published by Portalus Games until their closure in September 2018, when the game was subsequently picked up Vision Online Games.
This game provides examples of:
- Allegedly Free Game: While the game's cash shop does provide a few opportunities to bribe your way to victory, the majority of the items for sale are cosmetic.
- Boarding Party: An option during sea combat, which allows you to capture the enemy ship rather than sinking it.
- Booze-Based Buff: Giving rum to your crew will speed their recovery rate in battle. There's also that "medicinal" gin.
- Combat Pragmatist: The Dirty Fighting combat school is all about this.
- Cool Ship: A large part of the game is about acquiring various cool ships and upgrading them to make them even cooler.
- Dual Wielding: The Florentine fighting style utilizes a rapier and dagger in tandem.
- Emote Animation: Some of which are necessary to progress in quests.
- Eyepatch of Power: It wouldn't be a pirate game without them. Some are only available as quest rewards.
- Everything's Deader with Zombies: Zombie Pirates.
- Funny Background Event: There are many NPCs in various ports doing such things as telling big fish stories, carrying off women slung over their shoulder, haggling over the price of plantains, or discussing the comparative effectiveness of a pistol or a sword in a combat situation.
- Gay Option: At a certain point in the main questline the player is required to choose a Love Interest from a selection of NPCs, with no gender restrictions in place.
- Ghost Pirate: The Boogeyman may be one. He's clearly some sort of undead, at least.
- Guns Akimbo: A technique available in the Black Powder skill tree.
- Intrepid Merchant: The Freetrader career.
- Item Crafting: Players can build crafting structures at appropriate ports in order to craft everything from weapons to commodities to new ships. The game is intentionally set up to be nearly impossible for a single player to acquire all the needed crafting matierials on their own, though, forcing crafters to utilize the Player-Generated Economy.
- Historical Domain Character: William Kidd appears as the leader of the Brethren of the Coast and crimelord of Tortuga, a full 19 years after his supposed execution. Charles Vane also gets name-dropped multiple times.
- Mass Pirate Slaughter Sidequest: There are multiple repeatable quests in which you must defeat a number of ships belonging to certain hostile pirate clans.
- Not-So-Safe Harbor: The game is full of these.
- Parrot Pet Position: One of the primary types of vanity pet are various small animals (ravens, monkeys, parrots, etc.) who perch on the player's shoulder.
- Pirate Parrot: Available as a vanity pet.
- Politically Correct History: You'll see just as many female Naval Officers and Merchant Sailors as males.
- Power Fist: The Brawling combat school eschews swords in favor of handwraps for engaging in Good Old Fisticuffs.
- Pirate Girl: Various NPCs, plus the player if you so choose.
- Privateer: One of the three careers available to non-pirate players.
- Running the Blockade: PvP zones make certain ports dangerous to visit requiring players to run a blockade of enemy players. The Bermuda Trader's Sloop was specially designed for this combining a high speed with a cargo capacity that was noticeably higher than other ships with a similar speed.
- Sailor's Ponytail: Unsurprisingly, there a number of these available in character creation.
- Shout-Out: Far, far too many to list here. Thankfully, most of them are already compiled here
. - Sword and Gun: The default combat style for swashbuckling.
- Talk Like a Pirate: It crops up here and there, including in special holiday quests on Talk Like a Pirate Day.
- Talk to the Pistol: An early quest has a few pirates accost the player, attempting to intimidate him/her. While none of your dialogue options will avoid a fight, you can elect to preemptively pull your gun and "shoot the one in the middle."
- Throw Down the Bomblet: Players can unlock the ability to throw hand grenades in the Black Powder skill tree.
- Treasure Map: The main quest line involves the player character acquiring one.
- Voodoo Zombie: They mostly appear as enemies during seasonal events.
- You All Meet in a Cell: Pirate characters start off this way.
