The upgrade progression in Pirates is natural, and Ubisoft never butts in with invitations to speed ahead by paying real-world money.

You'll gather resources after downing a ship or winning a race, and you can then pop into a menu and choose what you want to spend your money and resources on. Thankfully, the actual act of upgrading is quite addicting, and handled in a tasteful manner. You do get to upgrade your ship throughout Pirates, but this core loop of 'attack, dodge, attack, dodge' never really evolves, which is a shame. The way your ship deftly speeds up or suddenly grinds to a halt is absolutely silly to watch the first time, and more than a bit annoying to watch the 100th time. Every shot or two, your enemy gets a chance to counterattack, which you need to dodge by either swiping to the left or to the right. You line up a shot, fire it at your enemy, and wait a mandatory handful of second for your cannons to cool down. Where Black Flag empowers you with a bombastic sensory overload and dense, challenging battles, Pirates bends reality and turns these skirmishes into little more than games of rock-paper-scissors. While the raw act of exploration is fun, the main problem with Pirates is its shallow, boring ship battles that quickly devolve into wildly unrealistic chores. I'm a sucker for being given the tools to fully map out an area, so this portion of Pirates really resonated with me.

Initially, the map is covered in a fog of war, but in typical Assassin's Creed fashion, discovering a lighthouse illuminates the surrounding areas. Exploring is simple, and usually done by dragging your finger across a map to chart the course of your ship. The main gameplay loop in Pirates involves exploring an area, winning ship battles and races to earn various forms of loot, and then spending it to upgrade your character, crew, and ship.

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