Ahoy!
First, the important stuff:
- Patch 1.3 is available. We've never done anything like this before as a studio.
- Starting NG is not required. We recommend loading version 1.2.1 saves made while on land.
- Today marks the game's second 'release'—Steam will be actively promoting it for two weeks.
- To celebrate, we've set a historic low price—50% off.
- Now's the perfect moment to start playing if you’ve been holding off for any reason.
- Black Mark DLC is out now.
What's New:
Ships
One of the goals of Patch 1.3 was not only to rework the remaining player-favorite early-game ships but also to lay the groundwork for the planned boarding scenes. The ships turned out great.
New ships:
- The Valkyrie
- The Meifeng
- Fluyt
- War Schooner
- The Principio (DLC)
- Improved sail and rigging quality for all ships in the game.
In total, ~30% of the entire game fleet has been revamped by 1.3 - just as planned.
Quests
Extinguished Star
We’ve never created a quest this complex, non-linear, and intricate before. It has everything: new content with Mary and Helen, direct impact on the main storyline, cutscenes, crazy flashbacks, and valuable loot. The quest starts at the end of "The Dutch Gambit" and continues through to "Turtle Soup." No spoilers—see it for yourself.
Black Mark
A non-linear quest, designed for the early stages of the game, offering valuable rewards and nods to veterans of the "Sea Dogs" series. Available in both Story and Sandbox modes. Part of the "Black Mark" DLC.
Rewards include: a duelling double-barreled pistol, an Italian rapier, an Army broadsword, a Black Spot ward, armor, as well as a new officer—Tommy Irons, and the legendary Pink of Nicholas Sharp, the Principio. The Pink is stunning, but the true star of the DLC is Irons. He's got killer jokes.
Locations
No new locations in this patch, aside from a few scenes for the Longway quest. The boarding decks took up almost all of our time and will continue to do so. All four decks will be included in either Patch 1.3.1 or 1.5.
However, we did update several old locations, especially those that significantly lagged behind the newer ones in quality.
Locations update:
- Locations and scenes for the "Extinguished Star" quest
- The Old Lighthouse
- Port Royal Lighthouse
- Several beaches
- Indian village
- Improved ground textures in towns.
Animations
We continue the challenging journey of bringing quests, battles, and cities life to life. The minimum program has already been fulfilled, and with Patch 1.5, we aim for something even more ambitious. Next-gen is just around the corner.
New animations:
- Unique animations for the "Extinguished Star" quest
- 7 new contextual death battle animations
- 2 prayer animations in churches
- 2 animations for drunks in towns
- Tavern musicians no longer drown out the game’s music
- Fishermen, blacksmiths, and musicians now work according to the time of day
New Hero
Due to popular demand, Helen McArthur is now a fully-fledged character in Sandbox mode. She is compatible with the "Vile Little God" and "Black Mark" DLCs. She has unique dialogues in her hometown Blueweld, unique achievements, loot, and starts her pirate career on a war schooner.
For now, she doesn’t carry a musket or visible armor, and there may be some "gender errors" ːrofl_pirateː in the dialogues. Her development will continue in Patch 1.5, along with other Sandbox characters.
Notification System
Traditionally, games in this series have never been known for being player-friendly or transparent, often requiring guides. What happened to my character? Why did I fail a dialogue check? What reward did I just receive? Any game needs to communicate with the player—and now Caribbean Legend does. I consider this the key feature of Patch 1.3.
New notifications:
- Over 100 new format notifications on sea, land, and in dialogues
- Combat statuses—from poisonings to critical damage
- Loot markers—so far, only for plants in the jungle, but this is just the start
- Quest navigation—so far, only for the beginning of the game
- More quest markers over characters and on the global map
- New tutorial videos for core game mechanics
Interface
Let’s be honest, we have the best interface. But somehow, the list of fixes for it has already stretched to three pages. ːrofl_pirateː The first half of the first page finally made it into Patch 1.3.
UI update:
- Unlimited key remapping—adjust the controls to your liking
- Control hints in loot, trade, and exchange windows
- Highlighting new entries in the ship’s log and documents
- Highlighting available skill points for characters
- Keeping the selected character when switching tabs between inventory and skills
- Displaying character roles in officer assignment windows
- Improved interaction with items in the inventory
- Added a DLC button in the menu—if all are purchased, it will be inactive
Miscellaneous
- 13 achievements
- New ward
- New sword
- Automatic crash reports sending - let's see how bad it really is out there
- Longway can now carry muskets
- New dialogue camera
- Missing textures restored for some objects in the "Flying the Jolly Roger" quests
- Claude Durand now reliably triggers his loyalty event after a set time
- Obtaining a patent removes pirates from the crew
- Reputation no longer drops if the player exits "Flying the Jolly Roger" questline before Cartagena
- Fewer soldiers in towns, and they stop the player less often
- Chance to deceive the guards can no longer exceed 90%
- Governors no longer ask you to infiltrate friendly towns
- Passengers no longer ask to be taken to hostile towns
- "Iron Will" perk no longer allows intimidating officers
- Missing item descriptions—skill bonuses, etc.—have been added
- Additional optimization of the tutorial on Martinique
- Spelling and grammar corrections - thanks to all reports you have been sharing on Discord
- Numerous bug fixes
- Improved overall game stability
1.5
That’s all for now! Over the past six months, we’ve done an incredible amount of work together. We’ve done everything possible and even more. Except for the Story mode epilogue, of course.
We could have done it already, but it would have been too... simple? I want to create something special and worthy of Charles de Maure's story—call it a "director’s cut" of his storyline, if you will. Plus, the game has long needed list of truly new mechanics, fixes for old ones, a complete rebalance, a new loot category, and a proper uplift of Sandbox mode. Not to mention improved controls, gamepad support, Steam Deck experience.
Patch 1.5 will take at least six months, and it will definitely require starting the new game. So for now, we’ll take a short break, rest, and then get back to work.
Coming soon...
ːjollyrː
