Skull and Bones: 5 pirate games to get you psyched

Skull and Bones officially releases on all major platforms today. I know, right?! That's like StarCraft: Ghost actually being released. Or Beyond Good & Evil 2. Or Duke Nukem Forev... OK, bad example.

Still, Ubisoft's near-mythical pirate adventure (better writers than I might even go as far as to call it the company's "white whale"), which has seemingly been in development since the Carter Administration, finally sees the light of day this week. In fact, it's already come up for air for some folks who have had the patience to not cancel their pre-orders.

Early reviews have been... surprisingly not terrible. We haven't played it beyond the recent open beta yet. Still, reactions to the game have been more Venom and less Morbius or Madame Web. So, you know, hope prevails.

Note: This list is subjective and solely reflects the opinions of the writer

As is well known, Skull and Bones was inspired by the more pirate-y parts of Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag. And, let's be honest, those were the best parts of Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag. However, there have been plenty of pirate-themed video games over the years, and a lot of them are pretty good.

So, because this is kind of what we do around here, we picked five other pretty kick-ass pirate games to share with you. There's been a lot over the decades, so we kept it to games that are still reasonably playable today. So, no having to go to an antique store and buy an old Amiga computer or anything.

And, yeah, Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag isn't on here. Because, duh.

Like No Man's Sky and Cyberpunk 2077 before it, Rare's Sea of Thieves is an amazing game that had a seriously rocky launch.

(As a side note: Look, we like a video game redemption story as much as anyone, but...