Every studio has its own vision when it comes to pirate-based video games. Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag offers a dark and mature, open-world approach. Sea of Thieves emphasizes wacky, multiplayer hijinks. Skull and Bones is an action RPG with a focus on sea combat.

Trident's Tale, the upcoming original IP from Italy-based developer 3DClouds, is bringing a splash of color to the pirate games landscape with a vibrant and lighthearted single-player action-adventure experience. You play as Ocean, a fledgling pirate whose life is turned upside down after discovering a piece of an ancient artifact called the Storm Trident hidden away in her shed. Almost immediately afterward, her home is burned to the ground and her adoptive grandfather is kidnapped by the evil Captain Cornelia with her horde of skeleton pirates. Now, Ocean has nothing left but the clothes on her back, a stolen sword, a magic-powered gun, and a boat—thankfully, all the tools she needs to begin her own seafaring adventure.

Having made their mark working on iconic IPs like Transformers, Paw Patrol, and Hot Wheels, the company’s goal in 2025 is all about crafting their own original worlds and characters.

“3DClouds is a studio that grew a lot in the last few years, especially in the Italian market, which is not as wide as it can be,” says Trident’s Tale Executive Producer Roberta Migliori. “From 2020, we went from 15 to 60 people. That makes us one of the biggest studios in Italy, and that's something we're really proud of.”

It's their work on IPs and products for various licensors like Hasbro, Mattel, and Paramount that has given them the reputation and resources to develop an original IP like Trident’s Tale. That brings with it both creative freedom and unique challenges.

“When you work on licensed games, you need to be really careful about consistency with the brand,” says Migliori. “On one hand, you already have a fully fledged world written by someone else, but when you go with your own original IP, you need to build everything from scratch. That’s the main thing, building a consistent brand where you can't rely on something that somebody on the other side of the world wrote for you. It's definitely more difficult.”

However, having worked on colorful, cartoony IPs in the past, creating a world of their own in a similar vein was well within the developers’ wheelhouse.

“Our studio is very vibrant, cartoony, and colorful,” says Trident’s Tale Lead Game Designer Linda Alderigi, who likens the game’s characters to those from a Pixar film. “It's something we can do really well.”

As Ocean undertakes her quest to recover the other pieces of the Storm Trident, she’ll build up a pirate crew, explore mysterious islands, trek through dank dungeons, and tangle with rival pirates and sea monsters alike in both on-foot combat and intense naval battles. “She always wanted to be a pirate, so this is the perfect time for her to jump in,” says Alderigi. “Of course, the crew is going to help across the story.”

And what a motley crew Ocean has. Each member she recruits—a shaman, a drunken pirate, a robot, a scientist, a magician, and a cook, among others—brings their own personality and backstory to the tale. “We tried to be as diverse as possible,” says Alderigi. “They're going to be on your ship and participate in commenting on the adventure.”

As mentioned, Trident’s Tale features both land- and sea-based combat against pirates, marines, stone golems, and all other manner of scurvy scallywags. On land, Ocean’s weapons of choice include her trusty sword and flintlock pistol. As the journey progresses, blueprints can be found to craft a wider variety of swords and pistols, each with its own strengths and weaknesses against certain enemy types. Since Trident’s Tale is meant to evoke the feeling of an animated film, the developers didn’t want players to get bogged down in complexity. 

“That was one of the main things that we had in mind when we started to work on this project,” says Alderigi. “We wanted to stay away from the kinds of games that rely on complicated calculating. You're not going to see many numbers on the equipment. Just understand ‘this kind of equipment is better for this kind of enemy’ and stuff. Nothing really complicated. You don't have to be so worried about all the equipment you can find.”

When her trusty pirate gear isn’t enough to get the job done, Ocean can avail herself of powerful techniques courtesy of her crewmates and a mysterious energy called Divinorum, which is built up as you strike down enemies with standard attacks. Despite Ocean being the only playable character, her crew members are far more than just window dressing. As each joins her on her quest, they’ll teach her new techniques to augment her abilities. 

For example, Pedro, the crew’s bard who loves to steal and drink, teaches her to play a violin that can both heal her and inflict drunkenness on enemies. The shaman Aleq gives Ocean the power to curse her enemies, confusing and weakening them in the process. Interestingly, these abilities carry over into the game’s naval battles. One crewmate teaches Ocean how to throw giant grog barrels at enemies. In sea combat, you can use your ship to hurl similar barrels that are significantly larger. 

Share a pint of grog with your crew, and you can build up your relationships with them, causing these abilities to power up and grow stronger. “You have to decide which character and skill you prefer in order to progress,” says Alderigi.

Having similar abilities between battles on land and sea gives the game a sense of consistency, which was a concerted effort by the developers. “We wanted to have something that was shared between the two kinds of combat,” says Alderigi, “so you can feel you are progressing in the same way when you come back on land. You can feel the variety in playing the game while understanding you are engaging combat in the same world. The mechanics are the same. The people running the ship are the same. We tried to balance these two things.”

Of course, this being a pirate game, Ocean will visit familiar genre staples like sun-baked, palm tree-dappled atolls, but the development team sought to create a nice variety of environments to explore, all while retaining the colorful, vibrant aesthetics of a cartoon world. “We decided to not limit ourselves with the ‘classic’-style pirate island stuff,” says Alderigi. One island is foggy and mystical, while another has a steampunk aesthetic where scientists are studying Divinorum. Another is home to a Navy city full of marines.

While Trident’s Tale does have a linear story, it also grants players a certain level of freedom to explore the world and meet characters outside of the main quest without putting pressure on the player to play a certain way. Exploration is both encouraged and rewarded. 

“You are actually free to go anywhere you want at any time,” says Alderigi. “You can just wander around the seas, see something in the distance, and go to other islands which are not part of the story. There are also some side quests, and some of them will unlock new crew members. We want to give the player the opportunity to have an adventure in an unstressful way.”

Ultimately, Trident’s Tale is shaping up to be a jolly, character-driven voyage across the high seas when it releases on the Epic Games Store this May. “We really wanted to leave the experience with the story and characters,” says Alderigi. “Just live in the moment and live the adventure.”

Trident’s Tale is coming in May to Epic Games Store.