This article is based on a preview build of Corsair Cove. This is not a full review, so please note that certain aspects may still change before release.
The Golden Age of Piracy is coming to an end, but it looks like there’s still time for a revival. This is the setting of Limbic Entertainment’s latest city building entry, Corsair Cove. City building fans may remember this as the developer that delivered Tropico 6. It is now leaving behind modern island building and going all the way back to when pirates roamed and looted the seas to scurry back to their safe havens.
It’s one of those island havens that I’ve had the opportunity to build and improve in the last week or so thanks to the Corsair Cove preview opportunity provided by publisher Hooded Horse. It was a pretty limited gameplay slice, but it gave me a good grasp of the start of the adventure and a glimpse at just how expansive it can be.
With building an unbeatable lawless sanctuary as my end goal, as I dived into this city builder, I was met with a game that offered a shaky economy to balance, complex production chains to manage, and a quite bossy population.
After a short introduction and a run-in with the pirate hunters of the Crown, the naval authorities of this era, Corsair Cove dropped me onto the scenic island that would become my pirate crew’s home base from then on. It’s a gorgeous setting, with its cliffs and narrow passageways making for a highly defensible location against any attacks. Best of all, there are plenty of organic resources scattered around this small, deserted island. The bad news is most of these resources are high up on the cliff faces or even growing on top of them.
