Who hasn’t heard about pirates (no, I’m not talking about the ones from torrent trackers)? They're everywhere, in books, movies and video games – with series like Age of Sail, Seadogs and Sid Meier's Pirates! counting among the better examples. However, the people from Flying Lab Software noticed that the romantic conquerors aren’t featured in any "serious" MMO (browser-based ones don’t count), so in 2008 they set sail with Pirates of the Burning Sea. Since then though things have changed and the game made a switch last year to a free-to-play model – you can play for free, but you have to pay for certain features if you really want them.

Just like in their golden age in the seventeenth century, pirates are not pillaging alone the PotBS seas, fighting heavily with the European explorers – English, French and Spanish – who also desire to claim the Caribbean for themselves. You will have to choose one of these factions, and if you decide to fight for the Europeans, you can follow one of three careers (read classes) available: Freetrader, Naval Officer or Privateer.

If you enjoy the exploration and trade you will choose the first option, because a Freetrader is the perfect class for PvE, the Negotiator skill providing you with the chance to get more money when you finish a mission. They aren’t bad on the PvP side either, but it takes a bit more work and a few skills that you can only improve at a higher level to not be clearly surpassed by someone who has bonuses for combat. Personally, I think that the Freetrader is the best class available, especially for beginners.

A Naval Officer is the tank that you can find in any MMO and as a result, uses the most powerful ships and items which are not available to a Freetrader or a Privateer. Increasing in level is also very easy thanks to the highly developed defensive skills and the shorter time for reloading the cannons, which may prove crucial advantages in longer naval battles. Even so, they are very vulnerable against a Privateer.

The latter is the class that prefers quick battles and especially the boarding ones, resembling a Cutthroat in some ways. But the most important skill of a Privateer is that he can immediately send captured vessels to his own nation, thus gaining large amounts of money.

On the other side of the fence, the pirates have only two careers: Cutthroat and Buccaneer. These are quite similar, both having the Scavenge ability that allows you to destroy the captured ship immediately and take all cargo from its hold, but a Cutthroat’s chance to get a “ship Deed", which allows you to use that type of vessel, is much smaller than that of a Buccaneer. Instead, Take Command is the advantage of a Cutthroat, a skill that once enabled gives you possession of the first ship you overcome.

Once you have decided for which side want to fight, you have to change your character's appearance. Not a very special stage at the physical changes level, but interesting thanks to the wide range of clothes to choose from. Also, if one day you don’t like what you see in the mirror, you can always change your appearance.

Let the fun begin…

Or not, because the starting experience in the Pirates of the Burning Sea is a bit on the difficult side and might scare away some of the newbies before they get to discover the more interesting features. The first problem is that instead of focusing on new things that you will encounter in Pirates of the Burning Sea, the tutorial highlights the more trivial things, like which keys to use to move or to fight.

Afterwards, the first quests are no walk in the park either. Instead of light missions to get you accommodated, you’re thrust into situations where you cand lose your ship pretty easily.

Thus, the progression through the levels is more difficult than it should be, at least until level 10, because nobody will take you in a fleet and must handle yourself in any way you can. However, if you're lucky and come across a high level player willing to help, you will be able to develop character very quickly, because fighting with strong NPCs nets you lots of experience, money and all kinds of items that can help you later on.

A more pleasant aspect is that the missions are not limited to “kill x- number of enemies” or “go and give item z to y”, some of which being in tune with the sunny surroundings – “save the lady from bad Englishman’s ship”/ “find the hidden treasure on the island at the other end of the map” /”conquer a fortress” and so on. The variety is further supported by the fact that in Pirates of the Burning Sea there are two types of combat: on land and sea, so you never get bored of too much water, but you will never miss the ocean’s calling either.

In a land battle, in addition to career-specific skills that you can learn from the right trainer, there are the so-called fighting styles: dirty fighting, fencing and florentine, each with associated skills. With every new character level you will recive a skill point for the class you have chosen, or one for fighting styles. You can learn a bit from each one, but you will never have all the skills within all three branches, so you have to specialize in order to progress and cope more easily in PvP.

Each fighting style corresponds to one type of sword from the three available: if you want to specialize in dirty fighting you must use a cutlass, a rapier for fencing, while florentine is great in that it allows a dual-wield with a short sword in one hand and a dagger in the other. In contrast, a Buccaneer or a Cutthroat can use any style of fighting, because they can always take the role of the tank and use a cutlass, but can do just as well as a two-weapon DPS. Regardless of which fighting style you choose, in addition to the sword you also have two pistols that are very useful in certain situations due to the significant damage they offer.