The Pirate Queen: A Forgotten Legend
gameinformer.comWhen you think of pirates, history mainstays like Blackbeard might come to mind alongside the fictional Jack Sparrow. An important but often forgotten name, however, is Cheng Shih. Not only is Cheng Shih one of history's most successful pirates, but she's also the woman who took over her late husband Cheng Yat's pirate armada after his death, putting her in indirect control of 40,000-plus pirates for a nearly decade-long stint in Chinese waters in the early 19th Century. While Cheng Shih's story can be found on pages of books and elsewhere, Singer Studios aims to bring her story to life in VR.
Taking place across a single night – the night Cheng Shih came to power, paving the way for her to create a code of laws for men and women to be treated equally on her ships – The Pirate Queen: A Forgotten Legend puts players in the shoes, errr boots, of Cheng Shih in PC VR devices and Meta Quest 2 next year. During a private game demo, I get a taste of this VR experience, which goes the escape room-esque route of VR gaming rather than the guns-blazing, setpiece-heavy one. Its quiet and methodical approach to gameplay is enticing, even without being in a headset to experience it myself. I'm especially interested in the team's focus on Cheng Shih's story and setting this VR game within a single night in her life. I'm told not to expect massive, pirate-filled battles but instead the emotional intensity Cheng Shih might have experienced that night.
«We come from film, so VR is a nice stepping stone for us,» Singer Studios CEO and creative director Eloise Singer tells me. «Each level has an escape room aspect; we wanted to lean away from being a shooter or combat game, challenging you to be as smart as she was, using her intellect to
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