Pirates of Black Cove

Warnings

The macOS (OS X) version of this game does not work on macOS Catalina (version 10.15) or later due to the removal of support for 32-bit-only apps.

Pirates of Black Cove is a singleplayer bird's-eye view action and strategy game.

General information

Steam Community Discussions (regular, sold by Paradox Interactive)

Steam Community Discussions (Gold Edition, sold by TopWare Interactive)

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Retail
Retail		Gold Edition; leads to separate Steam repo not otherwise available.
Steam
ZOOM Platform		Gold Edition.
GamersGate (unavailable)
Games for Windows Marketplace (unavailable)		^[1]
Green Man Gaming (unavailable)
Mac App Store (unavailable)

A free demo version is available from GamePressure and ModDB.

Version differences

The Gold Edition is a complete edition that includes the Origins DLC.

Monetization

DLC and expansion packs

Name	Notes
Origins

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\data\settings.xml^{[Note 1]} <path-to-game>\data\keyboard.xml^{[Note 1]} %USERPROFILE%\Documents\Nitro Games\PiratesOfBlackCove
macOS (OS X)
Steam Play (Linux)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/49330/pfx/^{[Note 2]}

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows	%USERPROFILE%\Documents\Nitro Games\PiratesOfBlackCove\SavedGames
macOS (OS X)
Steam Play (Linux)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/49330/pfx/^{[Note 2]}

Save game cloud syncing

System	Native	Notes
OneDrive		Requires enabling backup of the Documents* folder in OneDrive on all computers.*
Steam Cloud

Video

Basic settings

Advanced settings

Graphics feature	State	Notes
Widescreen resolution
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed
Borderless fullscreen windowed		The default windowed option.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)		"Off", "Low" and "High" options.
Anti-aliasing (AA)		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
High-fidelity upscaling		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Vertical sync (Vsync)
60 FPS and 120+ FPS		^[2]
High dynamic range display (HDR)		See the glossary page for potential alternatives.

Input

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping		Can be changed manually by editing the `keyboard.xml` file in the configuration file locations.
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support

Controller types

Audio

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls		Master, music, speech, effects
Surround sound
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English				DLC cutscenes are erroneously replaced by French ones in TopWare's Gold Edition on Steam.^[3] Voiceovers are correct in the ZOOM Platform and Paradox's Steam versions.
French				In-game voiceovers are in English, cutscene ones are localized.
German				In-game voiceovers are in English, cutscene ones are localized.
Russian				Fan translation by «R.G. ExPromt» – text or video with subtitle.
Spanish				In-game voiceovers are in English, cutscene ones are localized.

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
Direct3D	9.0c

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows
macOS (OS X)			This 32-bit-only macOS game does not work* on macOS Catalina (10.15) or later.*

Middleware

	Middleware	Notes
Physics	PhysX
Audio	FMOD Ex
Cutscenes	Windows Media Foundation

System requirements

Windows
	Minimum
Operating system (OS)	XP, Vista, 7
Processor (CPU)	Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHz
System memory (RAM)	2 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	4 GB
Video card (GPU)	Nvidia GeForce 8600 256 MB of VRAM Shader model 3.0 support

macOS (OS X)
	Minimum^[4]	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	10.6.8
Processor (CPU)	2 GB
System memory (RAM)
Hard disk drive (HDD)	1.5 GB
Video card (GPU)	256 MB of VRAM	512 MB of VRAM

OS X supported video cards: GeForce 8600/8800/9600/120/130/9400/285/320/330 or better, AMD Radeon HD 2600/4670/4850/4870 or better, Intel HD 3000/4000 or better (GMA 950/X3100, GeForce 7300/7600, ATI Radeon X1600/X1900 and Radeon HD 2400 are not supported).^[4]

Notes

↑ ^1.0 ^1.1 When running this game without elevated privileges (Run as administrator option), write operations against a location below %PROGRAMFILES%, %PROGRAMDATA%, or %WINDIR% might be redirected to %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore on Windows Vista and later (more details).
↑ ^2.0 ^2.1 File/folder structure within this directory reflects the path(s) listed for Windows and/or Steam game data (use Wine regedit to access Windows registry paths). Games with Steam Cloud support may store data in ~/.steam/steam/userdata/<user-id>/49330/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (49330) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.

References

↑ Microsoft Games for Windows Marketplace - last accessed on 20 August 2022
↑ Verified by User:Nico 0 on 2020-06-08
Tested at 165 FPS
↑ French intro? :: Pirates of Black Cove Gold General Discussions - last accessed on 2023-04-01
↑ ^4.0 ^4.1 Pirates of Black Cove Game :: Deliver2

[gamedir-2] 1.0 ^1.1 When running this game without elevated privileges (Run as administrator option), write operations against a location below %PROGRAMFILES%, %PROGRAMDATA%, or %WINDIR% might be redirected to %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore on Windows Vista and later (more details).

[Proton_path_note-3] 2.0 ^2.1 File/folder structure within this directory reflects the path(s) listed for Windows and/or Steam game data (use Wine regedit to access Windows registry paths). Games with Steam Cloud support may store data in ~/.steam/steam/userdata/<user-id>/49330/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (49330) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.

[1] Microsoft Games for Windows Marketplace - last accessed on 20 August 2022

[4] Verified by User:Nico 0 on 2020-06-08
Tested at 165 FPS

[5] French intro? :: Pirates of Black Cove Gold General Discussions - last accessed on 2023-04-01

[OS_X-6] 4.0 ^4.1 Pirates of Black Cove Game :: Deliver2

[1]

[Note 1]

[Note 2]

[2]

[3]

[4]

Developers

	Nitro Games
Publishers
	Paradox Interactive
Retail, ZOOM Platform	TopWare Interactive
OS X	Virtual Programming
Engines
	Vision
Release dates
Windows	August 2, 2011
macOS (OS X)	April 26, 2013
Reception
Metacritic	56
Taxonomy
Monetization	One-time game purchase, DLC
Microtransactions	None
Modes	Singleplayer
Pacing	Real-time
Perspectives	Bird's-eye view
Controls	Direct control, Point and select
Genres	Action, Strategy
Art styles	Stylized
Themes	Piracy