Leeway

The wind is real. The sea wants to sink you. The note comes due whether you made port or not.

Leeway is a trading sim of the age of sail, built on a sailing model you have to learn. Every wind shift and every shot is simulated, and the sea does not wait for you to be ready.

THE WIND IS THE MECHANIC

Apparent wind. Sail faster and the breeze you feel moves forward and hardens.

A no-go zone you tack out of. No rig sails into the eye of the wind, and a square rig cannot point as high as a fore-and-aft one.

Trim, reef and heel. Sheet in too hard in a blow and she lies over and stops pulling. Reef down and she drives again.

Leeway, which gave the game its name. She does not go where she points. She goes where the water lets her.

Cargo is weight. A full hold makes her slow to gather way, lets a rogue sea swamp her sooner, and can shift and put a list on her.

THE NOTE COMES DUE

The boat is not yours. You sign a note for her, and interest runs on what you owe. Fall far enough behind and the harbour takes your cargo to cover it.

Nineteen goods across a chain of island ports, three of them contraband.

Prices move with supply, with festivals and trade wars, and with how well the harbourmaster knows your face.

Commissions, blockades, wrecks and dig sites.

Merchants do not win gunfights. Run, dump a decoy, signal the navy, or get behind the headland before she does.

OR FLY THE BLACK FLAG

A second campaign with its own economy, on the same sea.

Hunt merchants for what is in the hold. Round shot, chain and grape each cut a different way.

Subdue, do not sink: a ship on the bottom pays nothing, so board her.

Five black-flag hulls, from the Corsair sloop to the three-masted Leviathan.

Heat, bounty, fences and a black market, and a navy that escalates until somebody comes for you by name.

THE SEA

Every campaign is a new archipelago, with its own wind, currents, storms and wrecks.

Storm cells you see coming from far off, to dodge or drive through.

Rain, fog, squalls, and a barometer that reads the weather before you can see it.

Three endings, earned three ways: brave the Eye, break your rival, or take the host that holds El Dorado.

SAIL WITH FRIENDS

Share a sea with friends over a private room code, or open it for anyone to join. Play is peer to peer and best effort: merchants in co-op, or the pirate hunting the merchant. There is no dedicated server. The whole game is there for one player, offline, and always will be.

AT A GLANCE

Not a survival game: no crafting, no hunger bar, no base building.

Four presets from Calm to Maelstrom (Maelstrom opens once you have won on Intense), plus separate raider aggression.

Seamanship from Deckhand, where the hands trim and reef for you, to Master, with no autotrim at all.

Five save slots, photo mode, Steam achievements, Low, Medium and High graphics presets.

Colour-blind modes, high contrast, text scaling, captions and reduced motion.

Interface translated into every language Steam lists for this game; a few of the newest sailing lessons are still in English.