Caribbean Legend News

[h2]Ahoy![/h2]
Two big things are happening this month. In a couple of weeks (fingers crossed) — the version 2.0 teaser. And today — the remaster of City of Abandoned Ships.
[h3]On the menu:[/h3]

• Age of Pirates launch
  
• The Franchise Rescue Plan™
  
• Patch 1.7.3
  
• Gifts
  

[h3]OUT NOW[/h3]
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3549020/Caribbean_Legend_Age_of_Pirates

A remaster of City of Abandoned Ships — one of the greatest open-world pirate RPGs ever made.
Back in its day, this was a rough, uncompromising game. It didn't hold your hand, didn't forgive mistakes, and didn't open up easily. But the few who pushed through the rough edges of the original were rewarded with dozens of hours of unforgettable adventure.

Now it's ready for a new audience. And it still has plenty to offer the old one:

• Modern controls
  
• Hundreds of improvements and refinements
  
• Dozens of side quests, a mountain of new content
  
• Letters of marque and Navy careers
  
• Colony capture
  
• Playable female character
  

[h3]This is just the beginning[/h3]
Those who've been following our work know that over two years, Caribbean Legend grew from a simple remaster of Sea Dogs: To Each His Own into a full-blown remake. We proved that this beloved genre and franchise still have a lot to offer — given enough time and doubloons.

ReCon Team want to walk the same path and grow Age of Pirates into a proper remake of City of Abandoned Ships. If the game succeeds — they'll get there.

Want to help?
Here's the sail plan:

1. Buy Age of Pirates
2. Caribbean Legend owners get a 25% launch discount!
   
3. Leave a review — blue as the Caribbean Sea
   
4. Play it. It's a 60-hour adventure and worth every minute
   
5. Claim your gift in Caribbean Legend. More on that below.
   

[h3]Patch 1.7.3[/h3]
To celebrate the launch of Age of Pirates, we've released patch 1.7.3.

• Balance adjustments to land combat difficulty
  
• Improved inventory UI
  
• Localization fixes (Korean in particular)
  
• Two new items
  
• Community Rewards system

Complete challenges to unlock unique in-game items. Five rewards are planned in total — two are available right now.

• Musket — earned by purchasing Age of Pirates on Steam.
  

• Journal — earned by following the Caribbean Legend franchise page.
  

And... that's all for today.
To the ReCon Team — good luck. Two years ago, I was exactly where you are now. I know how exhausted you are, and I know what you're feeling. I hope you get to make the game you've always dreamed of. And whatever happens today — you're incredible. Not everyone can hold it together, work overtime without a paycheck, and ship a game of this complexity and scale.

Break a leg!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3549020/Caribbean_Legend_Age_of_Pirates
https://store.steampowered.com/app/4238730/Caribbean_Legend_Age_of_Pirates__Supporter_Pack/

What we do — we do for you.
ːjollyrː

This is Joruba, head of BlackMark Studio.

Caribbean Legend: Age of Pirates is coming soon — next week, March 13th! A must-have, totally worth a purchase.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3549020/Caribbean_Legend_Age_of_Pirates/

In case you missed it: it's a remaster of City of Abandoned Ships. A standalone game developed by ReCon Team with a focus on open-world sandbox gameplay, featuring colony capture, letters of marque, and a female playable hero. BlackMark Studio acts as publisher, providing the engine and the best features from Caribbean Legend.

Sorry, Kirill, had to be said. The mic is yours. Break a leg.

[hr][/hr]

Hoist the topsails — set a course for the Bay of Creativity!

Kirill here.

These notes go with 1.8 Maritime Update. Today we’re polishing some of the oldest sea-faring systems: heading to the wind, boarding, and naval gunnery.

But first — a few answers.

[hr][/hr]

[h2]Q&A[/h2]

The previous GD Notes sparked a bunch of questions about Seasons and the systems around them.

Here are the ones that came up the most.

Q: The Season of Storm with increased storm damage sounds terrifying.

A: Storm frequency will indeed go up — but not by much — and storm damage is being completely reworked. Storms will stop ruthlessly sinking ships, and you’ll be able to fight in them as an interesting weather event, not a “die or die” scenario.
In the absolute worst case, with every debuff stacked, you’ll still end up with a storm effect slightly weaker than what you get right now.

Q: The size of the bonuses and penalties looks scary.

A: The goal is for Seasons to actually push you to change habits or take advantage of new opportunities. If we see a lot of complaints about a specific effect, we’ll adjust it.

Q: New events and changes to generation will make questing harder.

A: We want the effects to be noticeable, but not frustrating and not “chore-like”. Everything here is tunable, and we’ll adapt it based on player feedback during the open beta.

Q: Season of Storm and Season of Shade will turn the Caribbean into waiting out bad times.

A: The effects shown in the notes were just 2 variants per Season. In reality there are many more — they can be positive, negative, and sometimes unexpected.

At the moment, the total number of variations lets you live through roughly 3–4 in-game years without seeing a single repeat — and we can expand that further later.

Q: The icons at the end of the diary — are those new fast travels?

A: Yes — many of you guessed it. We’re continuing to improve convenience and decided to expand the list of places you can reach with fast travel.

[hr][/hr]



We already reworked sails, wind, and heading-to-the-wind behavior back in 1.5, and since then it’s been improved multiple times.

All this time we’ve been collecting feedback on how the system works (and especially when it doesn’t) — and we’ve finally landed on a real fix.

[h2]The technical side[/h2]

Ship speed at specific angles to the wind is probably the most complicated and confusing system in the game.

Besides the obvious parameters like wind strength and the actual angle, the calculations also involve physical properties of specific sails on the model, ship class, and results from formulas full of magic numbers.

The end result was a system that was hard to read and hard to trust — and we’ve been carefully patching it up ever since.

Now it’s time for a final technical push: get rid of the complexity, the bugs, and the numbers that behave “almost right”.

We simplified the formulas, cut some dependencies entirely, and now a ship in ideal conditions at max wind really does reach its listed top speed.

The heading curves themselves were also re-tuned manually for every ship, based on the new parameters.

[h2]The visual side[/h2]

Even if the system is finally correct under the hood, it doesn’t solve the second big problem: players don’t understand (and shouldn’t have to understand) how it works.

In-game, heading is shown as two weird numbers in the UI and two arrows on the minimap during naval combat.

None of that gives the full picture, and the minimap arrows are extra confusing — because they don’t show what players expect them to show.

Now, in naval combat, you’ll have a gradient ring around the minimap that rotates with the wind direction and highlights the optimal course with color.

It should make your ship’s strengths and weaknesses much easier to read.



This system works great:

• For quick orientation: want speed — point your bow at the green.
  
• For complex naval fights: when you have to tack and approach from a bad angle — the difference between yellow and orange sectors can easily cost you minutes of real time.
  

In the interface, we also offer an advanced view of speed vs heading angle — a “spider chart”. It lets you understand how a ship behaves at specific angles to the wind, and compare ships directly using overlays.



A spider chart isn’t the most obvious thing at first glance, but it’s a powerful tool for experienced players who want precise evaluation and comparison.

Technically it’s not a “spider” at all — it’s a polar chart (variable magnitude by angle). I call it a spider chart because it’s the closest mental model for people familiar with football sims and MOBA stat profiles.

You don’t need to know the math, so here are a few simple rules of thumb:

• Bigger overall shape = stronger ship within its type.
  
• Where the outline/fill is farther from the center, the ship is faster on that heading.
  
• When overlaying two ships: whoever is “outside” wins speed on that direction.
  
• If the shape is bigger at the top, the ship is strong with tailwind.
  
• If the shape is bigger at the bottom, the ship is stronger upwind.
  
• A smoother, rounder shape = less sensitive to wind. A sharper, pointier shape = higher chance to lose speed after a bad turn.
  

[hr][/hr]



Aimed broadside fire also appeared back in 1.5. Since then, we’ve been collecting opinions and feedback. Some people loved it, some didn’t — but certain requests kept repeating, and 1.8 addresses most of them.

[h2]Keeping the gun vector[/h2]

This was the single most common request.

Before:

When you press fire, each cannon “remembers” a point in space and shoots there. To hit precisely you had to account for relative velocities and shell travel time — and even then you’d never get a guarantee all shots would land, especially at long range.

Now:

When you press fire, each cannon remembers its pitch and yaw angle, and fires by that angle. That means if the ship turns or rolls, your aim shifts with the ship. It will make it easier to hit during chases and retreats — but long-range fire becomes less precise.



To compensate, we’re adding a mechanic that rewards players who don’t treat naval combat as “fire and forget”.

As long as you stay in aiming mode when firing, the cannons that are still loaded will continuously update their settings. In other words: if you keep your aim on the enemy ship throughout the whole salvo, you can land every shot.

[h2]Different firing order[/h2]

The updated gunnery system opens up more tactical depth for both player and AI, so we’re adding one more option: changing the firing order.

With the right gunnery skill, you’ll have three modes:

• Synchronized firing — as it works now.
  
• Bow to stern — if you’re chasing.
  
• Stern to bow — if you’re retreating.
  

This will create thousands of interesting situations and tactics — and enemies will feel more diverse.

[h2]Reload improvements[/h2]

We fixed an issue where selecting ammo that was already loaded forced gunners to dump everything out of the cannons and reload from scratch. Most of the time, an accidental click like that meant you ended up reloading a save.

We also added a new mechanic: with a certain skill from the gunner tree, switching a fully loaded broadside to different ammo won’t reset the reload to 0 — it will reset to 30%.
The AI can do this too, so expect a surprise volley.

[hr][/hr]



There’s a very old problem in the game: Vanguards can swing wildly between “useful” and “not even present”. In many situations they simply aren’t nearby, and the player ends up fighting alone.

Boarding suffered from the same thing: you smash through the enemy deck with overwhelming numbers, and one moment later you’re dueling the captain in proud solitude.

We decided to put an end to that. From now on, boarders join cabin fights:



Enemy captains now have officers too — so you’ll have to earn your numerical advantage.

A few facts about the mechanic:

• Mass cabin combat is available only on medium and large ships. Small cabins remain duels.
  
• Maximum fighters: 3v3. This is limited by cabin size.
  
• Vanguards join the fight from top to bottom as listed in the interface.
  
• If no Vanguards are assigned, their slots are filled by Alonso and a regular sailor.
  
• Some merchant captains may be missing one of their officers.
  

We hope this makes midgame cabin fights far more interesting.



[hr][/hr]



These are the last notes for patch 1.8: Maritime Update. The next news post will be tied to the release of Caribbean Legend: Age of Pirates — and we’ll be focusing on work.

The patch has a lot more in it, but you’ll see the rest in the full patch notes before the open beta.



What we do — we do for you :jollyr:

[hr][/hr]



What caught my eye personally...

[hr][/hr]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3678587967

A new mod by Shadow that deepens the stories and mechanics of the “Legend Captains” from the Ships Pack add-on series. Right now only two are ready — but it’s just a matter of time, and here’s why:

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https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3660562940

Another mod by the same author that’s been unfairly overlooked. Blood in the Water significantly expands the mechanics of punitive squadrons and threat. Highly recommend checking it out.

[hr][/hr]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3669024101

A really interesting mod by DIAM1ND that replaces tired gambling games with Zonk, inspired by the KCD series.

We fully support the initiative — great mod.

[hr][/hr]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3672368653

Another mod by the same author that offers an alternative progression system where the number of skill levels required to gain a skill point changes dynamically.

For those who want more than the game’s built-in dynamic leveling speed.

[hr][/hr]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3678675969

K1ndr3d keeps publishing mods that fix the game’s old sins. At this rate, you could assemble a full community patch out of their mods and integrate it into the vanilla version.

Hoist the topsails — set a course for the Bay of Creativity!

Kirill here. Consider yourselves officially and emphatically greeted.

This is the first proper devlog for 1.8 Maritime Update, and today we’re talking about Seasons.

The idea hit me when, during one of my playthroughs, I got a notification that my three-year trade license (earned in the Dutch quest “Prison Break") had expired.

And I thought:

“Wait… three years already? And I didn’t even notice.”

That’s when it clicked: the game didn’t really have a sense of time.

The Caribbean just… exists.

And you, as a player, simply explore it.

[hr][/hr]

[h2]A bit of historical context[/h2]

In the Caribbean Sea, “seasons” don’t work the way people from temperate climates expect.

No familiar summer and winter with temperature swings, no red-and-gold rainy autumn days in Cuba, no spring thaw and first snowdrops in Antigua.

But that doesn’t mean the archipelago lacks rhythm or cycles.

Humidity shifts. Currents change. Winds rage — then calm.

Every colonist and free captain lives by that cycle.

And players won’t be able to ignore it either.

[hr][/hr]



When we introduced the Stories system, it was obvious we wouldn’t get away with stealth alone.

In this update, every time a Season changes, you’ll face a matching Story.



We split the Caribbean year into four equal parts — aligned with the familiar “seasons” so nobody gets lost.

Each one hits the whole archipelago with powerful global effects, focused on the big yearly changes that matter.

And each year, those Seasons won’t play out the same.

Sometimes you’ll get a harsher Season than usual.

Sometimes it’s the opposite — and, against all expectations, the Season of Storm might pass without storms or sickness.

Of course, one captain can’t change whatever has already happened on a global scale.

But you can be more — or less — prepared.

A seasoned trader will squeeze far more out of the market frenzy during the Season of Sugarcane.

And staying on friendly terms with the Smugglers can seriously soften the shortages of the Season of Shade.

[hr][/hr]

[h2]Season of the Crown[/h2]
Archival image of galleons — the symbols of imperial power in the Caribbean.

Winter is a time of renewal and return. The north-easterly winds grow steady and predictable, making long Atlantic crossings far safer.
That’s when people and goods arrive from Europe. Governors receive fresh orders and reports, while patrols and royal convoys crisscross the sea.

During the Season of the Crown, pirate activity noticeably fades.
Shops are replenished with crown goods — timber, gunpowder, provisions.
Repairs are cheaper.
Recruiting a crew is easier.

If you’re hunting strategic supplies, this is your moment.
To strengthen their influence, the powers send far more royal convoys in this Season — and you’ll have a much easier time running into them.

[hr][/hr]

[h2]Season of Cane[/h2]

The last weeks of dry weather are the perfect time to bring in the colonial harvest — first and foremost, sugarcane. Currents and trade winds push toward their peak, and Caribbean commerce blossoms. Thousands of enslaved people are brought from Africa on overcrowded ships, while caravans loaded with spices, timber, and tobacco sail day and night toward the imperial colonies.

This Season is a trader’s paradise.
Stores overflow with colonial goods.
The gap between import and export prices grows.
And even the rising pirate activity can’t drown out the greed and hunger for profit swallowing the whole archipelago.

Buy a trade license at a discount.
Pack your holds to the beams.
Make your fortune while it’s still possible.

Because very soon…

[hr][/hr]

[h2]Season of Storm[/h2]
Archival image of El Casador in a storm. In the Season of Storm, even a giant like that can end up one breath away from death.

The midpoint of the calendar year is behind us, and the wet season begins. Winds turn unpredictable, and the sea grows more eager with each passing day to drag an unlucky captain down. The Atlantic starts to become an impassable barrier — and only madmen try to sail for Europe, gambling on the last calm days.

The Season of Storm is a trial for every captain.
The raging elements will test every ship and every port.
Disease spreads.
Goods vanish from shelves.
Sailors refuse to put to sea.

The Caribbean seems to fall silent.
And finding wreckage is far easier than finding an intact ship.

[hr][/hr]

[h2]Season of Shade[/h2]

The hurricanes that torment the Atlantic finally subside — but their последствия are felt everywhere. Garrisons are hollowed out by sickness and hunger, trade chains are broken, and the Caribbean freezes in time waiting for winter. In this season the sea turns crimson: starving, furious pirates run wild along the coasts, national fleets try to bite off the fattest piece from weakened rivals, and smugglers become the richest and most valuable people in the archipelago.

This is the season of payback and war.
Cut off from Europe by an Atlantic you can’t cross, weakened and vicious, the powers start devouring each other like spiders in a jar.

At sea, there’s nothing left but pirates and battles.
War fleets raid exhausted colonies again and again.
Shortages become downright brutal.

Your job is to survive until the Season of the Crown — or use the chaos to bite off a piece for yourself.



[hr][/hr]



Cycle after cycle, year after year, the Caribbean will change — and so will you.

The global map will react to the Seasons change: fleet activity and events will shift along with them.



You’ll feel these shifts directly — on yourself and on your fleet.

[h3]Season of the Crown[/h3]





[h3]Season of Sugarcane[/h3]





[h3]Season of Storm[/h3]





[h3]Season of Shade[/h3]





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The next notes will be out exactly one week from now.

There we’ll talk about the new shooting system, boarding, and much more.

These notes focus only on the key points — the big mechanics that need explanation.

But you know perfectly well the patch doesn’t end there.



[hr][/hr]



You reacted very active to the poll we ran in the previous post.

Polls are always a sensitive topic.

They ask the audience to click a link and spend time thinking through an answer.

That’s incredibly valuable to us.

And we’re grateful for your participation.

The results will take time to process, and we’ll share them as soon as we’re done.

By the time this text was written, 1343 respondents had taken part (18.5% of those who read the notes to the end) — a seriously impressive number.

We value every response and will review them carefully.

Not many studios can brag about an audience this engaged.

And ours is the best in the world!

The best ideas will go straight into the work queue for Update 2.0.

[hr][/hr]



What personally caught the author’s eye.

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https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3670613839

A big, juicy, powerful, well-crafted mod that adds a new character to Free Play, with a small storyline of their own and an adaptation of the main game’s story content.

Author — WickedGranny.

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https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3433429137

A fresh update for the Direct Sail mod.

We’re unlikely to work on that mode ourselves, so fans of it are putting all their hopes on Gregg.

[hr][/hr]
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3672520320

An excellent mod that expands sail recoloring and fixes an ancient bug we never seem to have enough time for.

Author — NathanAlejver, winner of the previous season.

[hr][/hr]
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3672115386

A small tweak that makes one of the most useful merchant ship traits even more useful.

Author — K1ndr3d.

[hr][/hr]
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3662215182

A solid little mod by Winarik that reworks junk dealers’ stock and adds progression based on player rank.

It helps make crafting a deeper mechanic.

[hr][/hr]
Image enhanced

Working for you :jollyr:

Hoist the topsails — we’re setting course for the Gulf of Creativity!

Kirill here. Greetings, everyone.

While you’ve been busy playtesting CL: Age Of Pirates and arguing about how tough the Blood storyline is (highly recommended if you haven’t tried it yet), we’ve been hard at work too.

[hr][/hr]

[h2]New Horizons[/h2]

At the start of 2026, the plan was to ship patch 2.0 and, possibly, 2.1. Patch 2.0 would have meant starting a new playthrough — and it would have brought a ton of new content and mechanics.

But 2025 turned out to be a great year for us: we secured additional resources and expanded the dev team. That gave us a much bigger runway and let us build far more than we originally expected.

BMS working on two patches at once. Live footage.

This spring, we’re releasing a major themed update that won’t require a new game. It’s aimed at improving parts of the game we haven’t touched in ages — and some we haven’t touched at all. More details below.

And I want to say this loud and clear: none of this would be possible without you — our players. Your feedback, reviews, and support (including DLC purchases) help us keep growing and keep bringing you new content.

Thank you!

[hr][/hr]

[h2]1.8 Maritime Update[/h2]

You may have noticed that with each update we shift focus between land and sea. Now it’s time to head back to the waves.

[h3]What’s in 1.8[/h3]

• Improvements to naval gunnery — something you’ve been asking for for a long time.
  
• More work on naval AI, especially ship aggressiveness.
  
• A major overhaul of the course angle system. No more weird numbers.
  
• Boarding improvements, with special attention to the final phase.
  
• Updates for Martinique — something we’ve been putting off for too long.
  

[h3]The world map and a “living” Caribbean[/h3]
We’ll also be revisiting the world map layer — and making a big leap in immersion. The Caribbean is getting more dynamics, including seasonal changes. Time will no longer be just a background counter — it will influence the world around you.

[h3]When to expect details[/h3]
You’ll be able to read about all of this in our upcoming notes. The first issue goes live next week.

Drop your questions in the comments!

[hr][/hr]

[h2]2.0 — your opinion matters[/h2]

Alongside 1.8, we’re continuing work on version 2.0. This will be the biggest and most exciting update we’ve ever made — and possibly one of the biggest updates ever made for this series.

We’ve got a huge internal list of improvements, but we can’t do this without your help.

Please take the survey below — it will help us focus on what matters most to the community.

WE WANT YOU TO JOIN BMS SURVEY.

[h3]Survey[/h3]

• English version

We don’t collect any personal data. If you see your email address, that’s simply Google showing you that you’re signed in.

This is Joruba, head of BlackMark Studio.

The Caribbean Legend: Age of Pirates playtest is officially over — and it was big.



The game held up remarkably well. For a beta, the bug count was impressively low. Some of you logged dozens of hours, cleared most of the side quests, and hit a serious character level. That means a lot to us. Thank you! ːrespect_soldierː
[hr][/hr]
Reading through the comments, it's clear that some players aren't quite sure what this game actually is — or how it's different from Caribbean Legend. If that's happening, that's on me as a publisher. Let me clear things up. ːrespect_soldierː

Why didn't you just merge AoP content into the base CL?
Age of Pirates is a remaster of City of Abandoned Ships. Caribbean Legend is a remake of a completely different game — each built by a different team, at a different time, with a different design philosophy. Both run on the Storm Engine, which still does certain things better than anything else out there — but it's also notoriously painful when it comes to cross-project development and compatibility. Moving content or mechanics from one game to the other isn't just hard. It's expensive, slow, and often simply not worth it.

CL is a story-driven adventure. AoP is an open-world sandbox. They're not two versions of the same game — they're two very different games that happen to share a universe. Believe me, I'd love to have one definitive pirate RPG that does everything. We're not there yet.

Why does CL have things that AoP doesn't?
Things like the new naval targeting system or autosaves — yes, those would be great in AoP too. If the game does well, ReCon Team will look at adding them post-launch. But some things, like the item and perk system, aren't being ported over by design. The team has their own vision for where this game goes, and I want them to build something new — not a second CL. And again, the technical barrier between these two games is real.

Why are you working on a second game before finishing the first?
We're not. Age of Pirates is developed by an entirely separate team. 90% of BlackMark Studio's resources are going into Patch 2.0 right now — we've been at it for nearly a year. Once AoP launches, there'll be a teaser trailer, and you'll see exactly what I mean.

Why is AoP so hard?
Because City of Abandoned Ships was a hard game. With CL, we pulled the difficulty back significantly — and honestly, a portion of the audience wasn't happy about that. ReCon Team will be addressing some of the rougher edges based on playtest feedback. Beyond that, it's their call — and I think that's the right approach.

Thank you to everyone who participated, played, and helped us catch bugs and rough spots. We've got plenty to work with before launch.
[hr][/hr]
[h3]Release Date[/h3]
March 13, 2026 — 10:00 AM PST
[h3]Price[/h3]
$19.99
[h3]Special Offer[/h3]
25% discount for Caribbean Legend owners
[h3]About the Game[/h3]
Caribbean Legend: Age of Pirates is a remaster of City of Abandoned Ships — one of the most distinctive open-world pirate RPGs ever made.

It was never an easy game. It didn't hold your hand, didn't forgive mistakes, and didn't show you everything upfront. But the players who pushed through found something rare: a living open world with real freedom, real depth, and dozens of hours of adventure that few games in the genre have matched.

Now it's ready for a new generation of players — and it has plenty to offer the old guard too. Overhauled controls, hundreds of fixes and improvements, dozens of side quests, a mountain of new content, officer patents, colony capture, a playable female character — and that's just the start.


[hr][/hr]
With your support, Age of Pirates can go the same distance Caribbean Legend has — from remaster to full remake.

City of Abandoned Ships deserved a second chance. Now it's getting one.

March 13 — set sail.
What we do — we do for you.
ːjollyrː