Monkey Island isn’t just a great series of video games, it’s essential playing for anyone who wants to understand the pirate genre and how it ended up where it is today.įor those looking for a more serious RPG experience, Obsidian Entertainment’s Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire is the way to go. The Curse of Monkey Island in particular is a hilarious game, with singing pirates, family reunions gone awry, and a new cartoonish art-style that would help cement the tone of the rest of the series. Perhaps more importantly, the Monkey Island games injected a revived sense of fun and originality to a genre which, when the games began in the ‘90s, appeared largely concerned with readapting Treasure Island. The story of Guybrush Threepwood as he tries to win the hand of his true love, governor Elaine Marley, and fight the forces of the Ghost Pirate LeChuck has had a huge influence on the pirate genre, in particular the conception of the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, which is believed to have been partially adapted from an abandoned Monkey Island script, with Elaine becoming Elizabeth, the governor’s daughter, and LeChuck becoming Captain Barbossa.

No list of pirate games would be complete without a tip of the tricorne hat to LucasArts’ Monkey Island games.

Free to play pirate games