Sea of Thieves meets XCOM in this newly announced turn-based tactical rogue-lite featuring cursed pirates and deadly sea monsters

Raise the anchor and set sail for the cursed Rogue Waters and battle your way to piratical supremacy

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Rogue Waters is a new turn-based rogue-lite revealed at theFuture Games Showat Gamescom Presented by Sid Meier’s Civilization® VII, featuring naval battles, cursed pirates, and summonable sea monsters.

From Polish indie studio Ice Code Games and publisher Tripwire Interactive, Rogue Waters sees players gather a crew of scallywags and captain their own ship through the treacherous and ever-changing seas. With each encounter, you’ll have opportunities to improve your crew and your ship, helping you take on greater challenges and more threatening rival crews.

In ship-to-ship combat, you’ll command your crew to fire cannons at crucial modules on enemy vessels and forts, affecting their crew or destroying their weaponry, but they can do the same right back to you. Eventually, you can prepare a boarding action or make landfall and battle your foes on land in more traditional tactics-style combat with swashbuckling sword attacks.

Some of the most dangerous accursed crews have legendary sea creatures under their spells, but you can liberate these monsters by sinking their captors. You might even be able to tame a kraken and get it to fight on your side, helping you bring down the rest of the sea dog scoundrels out on the water with colossal tentacles.

Additionally, as a rogue-lite, you’ll find that many aspects of your ship and crew don’t carry over, and the procedurally generated waters present unique challenges and always test your ability to manage your ship and crew effectively. A strategic mind is crucial to surviving in Rogue Waters, but even if you fail a run, you’ll be one step close to becoming the ultimate pirate.

Rogue Waters is sailing onto PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store on September 30. While you wait, you can follow the game on Twitter and get it on your Steam wishlist to stay up to date on the latest news that comes from these dangerous waters.

If you’re looking for more excellent games from today’s Future Games Show, have a look atour official Steam page.

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GamesRadar+ created this content as part of a paid partnership with Tripwire Interactive. The contents of this article are entirely independent and solely reflect the editorial opinion of GamesRadar+.

Will Sawyer is a guides writer at GamesRadar+ who works with the rest of the guides team to give readers great information and advice on the best items, how to complete a particular challenge, or where to go in some of the biggest video games. Will joined the GameRadar+ team in August 2021 and has written about service titles, including Fortnite, Destiny 2, and Warzone, as well as some of the biggest releases like Halo Infinite, Elden Ring, and God of War Ragnarok.

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