In a world without gold, we might have been heroes! - Cultural Imaginations of Piracy in Video Games - EugEn PfistEr

Aug 23, 2026

The article examines how cultural imaginations of piracy—shaped in Western Europe through colonial narratives, exotic Caribbean imagery, and heroic “hors-la-loi” plots—persist and transform in open-world video games. It traces an enduring storyline: a wrongly convicted young man who redeems himself by rescuing a city/colony/princess and is reintegrated into society. Using examples such as Assassin’s Creed IV and Pirates!, it analyzes whether the trope continues to communicate social discipline or changes within the interactive media logic.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages14

Reading Time35 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

The Scourge of the Caribbean

Pirates in popular imagination and media

From historical buccaneers to genre construction

Honor, exclusion, and redemption narratives

Video games as modern iterations

forum for inter-american research (fiar) Vol. 11.2 (sep. 2018) 30-43 issn: 1867-1519 © forum for inter-american research | “In a world without gold, we might have been heroes!”Cultural Imaginations of Piracy in Video Games
EugEn PfistEr (HocHscHulE dEr KünstE BErn) | | --- | | Abstract
From its beginning, colonialism had to be legitimized in Western Europe through cultural and political narratives and imagery, for example in early modern travel reports and engravings. Images and tales of the exotic Caribbean, of beautiful but dangerous „natives“, of unbelievable fortunesand adventures inspired numerous generations of young men to leave for the „new worlds“ and those left behind to support the project. An interesting figure in this set of imaginations in NorthWestern Europe was the “pirate”: poems, plays, novels and illustrations of dashing young rogues, helping their nation to claim their rightful share of the „Seven Seas“ achieved major successes in France, Britain the Netherlands and beyond. These images – regardless of how far they might have been from their historical inspiration – were immensely successful and are still an integral and popular part of our narrative repertoire: from novels to movies to video games. It is important to note that the “story” was – from the 18th century onwards –almost always the same: a young (often aristocratic) man, unfairly convicted for a crime he didn’t commit became an hors-la-loi against his will but still adhered to his own strict code of conduct and honour. By rescuing a city/ colony/princess he redeemed himself and could be reintegrated into society. Here lies the morale of the story: these imaginations functioned also as acts of political communication, teaching “social discipline”. But does this narrative still function in open world video games like Assassin’s Creed IV and Pirates!? This article examines “modern” iterations of these ahistorical imaginations in videogames to see ifand how the cultural image of“piracy”has changed through the media of videogames.
Keywords: Game Studies, Cultural History, History of Ideas, Cultural Studies, History of Piracy | The Scourge of the Caribbean Pirates!They are the scourge of the seven seas, the nightmare of every law-abiding merchant, dashing adventurers, brutal murderers, fearless explorers, romantic womanisers; they are criminals but also romantic idols. They ooze a sort of anarchic machismo and glamour. We read about them in adventure novels, we see them in the cinema and on TV, we dress up as pirates and now – with the advent of video games – weare able to virtually immerse ourselves into the myth, playing games like Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag (Ubisoft Montreal 2013) or Sid Meier’s Pirates! (Microprose 1987) . The idea of the swashbuckling pirate, especially in conjunction with imaginations of tropical Caribbean islands is still successfully tapping into some of our more subconscious desires (Mackie 24) . It is a promise of exoticism and adventure, of freedom and sex (Ganser 32) . The phenomenon is not particularly new, and by no means an invention of video games: “In representations so ambivalent and repetitious as to signal a cultural fixation, volume after volume of criminal biography have fixed the pirates of the early modern Caribbean as objects of popular fascination, glamorization, and, I think, nostalgia since the late seventeenth century.” (Ganser 32) It should come as no surprise, that the romantic pirates of our video games are not authentic representations of the buccaneers of the seventeenth century or of the pirates of the eighteenth century. Our jaunty reinterpretations have, in fact, very little in common with the harsh (and mostly short) lives of Caribbean pirates1 : “the pirates in these texts may be seen as all and none of the above at the sametime; they are textual constructions articulating a historical phenomenon” (Ganser 32) In our popular imagination, the life of the pirate is an e

FAQs

What historical narrative pattern does the article identify behind pirate imaginations?

It centers on a young man unfairly convicted, forced into life as an outlaw yet bound to a strict code of honour, who redeems himself by rescuing a city/colony/princess and can be reintegrated into society.

How does the article argue video games reshape the idea of “piracy”?

It suggests that game depictions are not authentic reconstructions of historical pirates, but modern reinterpretations that translate long-standing cultural constructions into interactive form.

Which games are used to test whether the pirate narrative still works in modern media?

The article focuses on open-world iterations, explicitly mentioning Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag and Sid Meier’s Pirates! as key examples.

Aug 23, 2026

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