A Pirate Game Cursed To Development Hell Since 2010 Will Finally Release In May

Captain Blood, a pirate-themed action-adventure game that was supposed to launch in 2010 but has been stuck in development hell since then, will finally come out on May 6.

Captain Blood is an Xbox 360-era action-adventure game through and through, following a pirate captain on a quest to save a damsel in distress after other, more evil, pirates kidnap her. To accomplish that, the titular antihero needs to punch, slash, and shoot his way through anyone who gets in their way, completing the occasional quick-time event or fighting powerful enemy bosses. It looks like a throwback to action games on consoles like PS2 and Xbox 360, which makes sense as that’s the era of gaming Captain Blood is actually from.

Development on Captain Blood reportedly began as far back as 2003, as Russian developer Akella planned to make a game based on a novel by author Rafael Sabatini. A game titled Captain Blood was first teased at E3 2004, but it switched teams and restarted development multiple times before the project settled with publisher 1C Company around 2008. GameSpot even went hands-on with Captain Blood around this time, already lamenting that it had “been in development for several years now.” While a release was supposed to happen by 2010, it kept getting delayed and ended up never releasing due to parties involved with the game going bankrupt and other legal challenges surrounding the game.

All of that meant Captain Blood was left stuck in development hell after 2010…until now. In 2024, video game publisher SNEG Ltd. acquired the rights to Captain Blood and began working on an offical release. After one last small delay from late 2024 to 2025, we finally have a concrete release date for this action-adventure game. While we have no idea whether or not the game itself is any good, it’s impressive that a game that seemed cursed to never release is finally coming out.

Captain Blood launches for PC, Steam, Mac, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch on May 6, priced at $25.