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Last Pirates: Die Together Early Access Preview
- Taylor Rioux
- 17 hours ago
- 4 min read
We reached the shore without any fanfare or direction. In front of the crew sat a large, dark building, which all signs pointed us toward exploring. Behind the four of us, a massive kraken sat guarding the waters. Of course, my first impulse was not to ransack that aforementioned edifice, but to take a swim. After only a few steps, I was grabbed and tossed back ashore by the massive beast lying in wait, leaving me wallowing limply on the sand. Luckily, there was no harm done, and looting could begin in earnest.
Publisher: RetroStyle Games Developer: RetroStyle Games, Judatone Studios, Phoenix Game Platform: Played on PC (Steam) Availability: Released on August 18, 2026 on PC (Steam) |
As my team ran toward the doorway, I felt a tinge of excitement. We did the barebones tutorial, but what does this game actually play like? None of us had run a game yet, and all were unfamiliar with the exact requirements or purpose of playing. So we went forward and opened cabinets, drawers, and chests in the opening room, laughing at the stupidity of the flailing arms and flopping dashes of our character models.
Suddenly, a scream. “Ah, what is that?” Before we could answer, a giant floating head swept through the room, chomping through our squad one by one until only one player, the only one smart enough to hide under a table, remained wedged under a coffee table with their character’s buttocks proudly exposed to the now-spectating pirate crew. As the floating head drifted away, each player was put back together. Clearly, the experience of Last Pirates: Die Together is more tense and threatening than I was immediately prepared for, with stealth and attentiveness playing a larger part in the moment-to-moment gameplay than the tutorial let on.
As we rifled through every last shelf or coffer we could find, all of us became a bit more adept at recognizing how much to carry, when to hide, and when to make a trip back to offload our spoils, but those lessons were hard-earned.
At one point, we brought our cart into a room to store our goods, but when the floating head appeared, the cart was blocking the doorway, leaving us with no way to escape cleanly. As such, I ran to push the cart forward when, suddenly, it shot up into the air, latching itself to the ceiling, rumbling around rapidly in defiance of the natural order of physics. Our escape was simultaneously assisted by and made more confusing by random chance.
After the threat had passed once more, I went to reclaim our prizes, only to find everything we had collected had completely disappeared.
Unfortunately, this type of event was not an isolated incident. Little physics glitches or troubles would sprout up from time to time, though usually in less offensive ways. Such may be par for the course in many similar indie co-op experiences, but those glitches did sour the feeling in the moment, negating our hard-earned progress or producing undesired outcomes more than I would have liked.
Still, we persevered and made it back to our boat with our loot in tow, setting us up for the next day. In between each new day, players are able to gather around a table and spend that cash on upgrades or gear that help make each new day more manageable. While some of these boosts are passive modifiers, others require deliberate action or circumstances to make use of. A gun can’t be used while carrying gold, extra butts (which function as a player’s lives) only matter if someone dies, and so on.
Those modifiers and items freshened each level up a bit — I certainly had a blast serving as the resident monster hunter of the group by seeking out the threats and gunning them down — but the core loop of the game did get a bit stale quite fast. Despite new levels and enemies coming to life on each new day, the actual play experience felt near homogeneous, with the same actions and tricks working in all scenarios. When we made it to our fourth day, a pattern of efficiency had emerged, blending the entire experience together as if it were one continuous level.
Still, with a good crew, the fun levels could be maintained over short bursts by simple virtue of placing players in dangerous-but-silly scenarios over and over.
The game’s current shortcomings are certainly resolvable, and with the developers invested in polishing the experience, I have high hopes for where it lands. There is a spectacularly fun foundation at play, with mechanics that naturally facilitate thrilling and hilarious scenarios in equal measure. More than simply being a backdrop to gather with friends, it actively creates memorable beats for players to react to — a quality often lacking in similar titles. Should those technical hiccups get ironed out, this will be a game worth keeping an eye on.
Image Credits: RetroStyle Games
Disclaimer: We received a free copy of this game from the publisher.
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