Last Pirates: Die Together is an item collection style game similar to games like REPO, Lethal Company, and most recent in the genre, The Mound: Omen of Cthuhlu. There are gather and extraction games you play with friends that have you tracking down and collecting items to make a quota. But instead of doing this in abandoned buildings for scrap and various items, you hunt in a pirate cove in search of lost treasure.
The gameplay loop of Last Pirates: Die Together is the same as most like it. You enter the pirate cove, hunt around for loot, avoid the monsters that attempt to stop you, and get out with your booty. And yes, I do mean your booty. Each time you are downed you will lose said booty and either have to find it again or find another before you die. And to boot that booty, you’ll also have a monkey assistant who can cart away their own loot!
However, unlike most of the games in the genre, your pirates have long elastic arms that can certainly create some moments of intended and unintended comedy. By having your limbs and what they can do having decently convincing physics, you can really play into the comedy aspect, or via gameplay moments like reaching decent length distances to gather some booty.
There are upgrades, cosmetics, and weapons that you can buy between each day. Cosmetics can help you build the pirate you want, the weapons can be used to fight back against the enemies in the cove. The upgrades as you can guess help you collect items and survive the horror within. This is a loop that you’ll repeat with the friends around you.
Some of these upgrades can be funny to see at first, and with friends there is more fun. These upgrades change from the mundane like health and strength, to more silly ones like increasing the size of your hand to carry more coins, or extending the length of your arm to reach further.
Currently, in the beta, there are 25 levels for you to explore and loot but don’t forget the enemies, they vary too. From tall pirates with hooks, monkeys who steal your coins, floating heads and ghost sharks, there are plenty of threats to watch out for, especially the Mimic, as it can speak in your friend’s voice. Mwhahaha.
Now, Last Pirates: Die Together is early access so that does mean it comes with some bugs and balance issues. For bugs, a few friends of mine have hitched through floors or got locked to items which got them stuck. As for balance, I find that the enemies spawn in far too fast. I have had times where I killed an enemy only for it to spawn back in only 30 sec to a minute later.
Even with those small gripes, Last Pirates: Die Together is still a fun time hunting for treasure in a cursed pirate cave. Even though the enemies are always hounding you with a far too generous respawn timer. I look forward to what is to be found later as the team behind it keeps going, and giving us more reason to grab that booty.