Horatio Hornblower Storyline Preview feature - Pirates of the Caribbean: New Horizons mod for Pirates of the Caribbean

Although Pirates of the Caribbean was originally created as a pirate game, many people like to play it as a historically accurate naval simulation. In our attempts to make the game more realistic and interesting for those players, we have begun work on adding a navy main quest. The choice fell on the character of Horatio Hornblower, who lends himself very well to being put into a game.

At the moment, we have created the beginning of the quest, chronicling Hornblower's assignment to the HMS Indefatigable under Captain Sir Edward Pellew. The player gets little time to get used to his situation as the ship is soon ordered to go into battle with a French battleship. But not before Hornblower meets a rather aggressive and unpleasant fellow midshipman.

THE REAL HORATIO HORNBLOWER

As with Jack Sparrow in the previous storyline preview, Horatio Hornblower was not a real person. He was conceived by C.S. Forester in 1937 and went on to become the main character in eleven books, one epic TV movie in 1951 and most recently an eight-part TV series.

Illustration: Poster for the original Hornblower movie

Hornblower joins the British Royal Navy as a midshipman, the lowest rank of officer. He quickly distinguishes himself as being an excellent leader. The most interesting aspect of the character of Hornblower, however, is his personality. Despite all his succes and popularity, he is an unhappy and lonely man who tends to subject himself to merciless self-doubt.

As such, he is a rather unlikely hero, but a very endearing one who has stood the test of time as being one of the best fictional characters in a series of historical
books.

Illustration: Hornblower and Captain Sir Edward Pellew in the new TV series

IN THE GAME

The story has been adjusted for a Caribbean setting, but you will encounter many characters and scenes that you could recognize from the books and movies. Sound clips from the movies have even been included in the dialogs to provide additional immersion.

After serving as midshipman aboard HMS Justinian, Captain Keene tells you that you have been transferred to HMS Indefatigable under Captain Sir Edward Pellew. Captain Keene doesn't appear to like Hornblower very much.

Aboard the ship, you are greeted once more by the senior midshipman: a most friendly character named Jack Simpson.

During this quest, you will be waging war on Napoleonic France and will fight for the freedom of the Caribbean islands over the rule of a tyrant. This will mean you will fight many a sea battle, but that is not all. Horatio Hornblower is being joined by a character from another famous series of literature in the form of Bernard Cornwell's Richard Sharpe of the 33rd Foot and eventually the 95th Rifles Regiment. This adds an aspect to this story previously unseen in the game, namely land battles involving riflemen and field cannons.

On the below screenshot, you can part of the worldmap in "New Horizons". The stock game finctional islands have been renamed to their real-life counter-parts and also the toy ships on the worldmap have been replaced.

In addition to worldmap sailing mode, there is now Direct Sail. Thanks to this mod, you can now sail from island to island in 3D sailing mode without having to go to the worldmap. Along the way, you will encounter other ships or interesting things drifiting in the water.

This is an oft-requested feature and was thought to be impossible to achieve for the longest of time. But achieve it we did and it appears to be working very well now. In both the Horatio Hornblower and Legend of Jack Sparrow main quests, use of this mod is encouraged and characters will tell you which course to sail to get to your next destination. However, this is not required and you can still use the worldmap whenever you want.