It's About Pirates Harpoon Guide: Builds, Aiming, and Shop Tips

Why the Harpoon Deserves Its Own Plan

The harpoon is one of the few weapons that It's About Pirates names outright, standing beside flamethrowers and mortars in the developer's own arsenal description. That makes it an obvious anchor for a run — and an obvious thing to search for help with. This It's About Pirates harpoon guide is built on what the press kit and a launch-window review actually confirm, and it focuses on the part you control: how to test a harpoon loadout, when to switch aiming modes, and how to spend loot without gambling away a good run. If you came here for an It's About Pirates harpoon guide full of invented damage numbers, you won't find them — but you will find a repeatable process that works with the systems the game does document.

The core idea is simple: your ship fires waves of weapons at enemies closing from every side, you scoop up loot, and you buy upgrades between days of sailing. A harpoon only earns a slot if it fits that loop better than the alternatives.

What Sources Confirm About the Harpoon

The Elderwoof Games press kit describes a pirate survivor game where you "blast through relentless waves of enemies, collect loot, and upgrade your ship for epic naval battles." In its feature description, it lists harpoons alongside flamethrowers, mortars, and "a vast arsenal of deadly upgrades."

The InsertCoins review of the naval survivors-like, published 2026-11-06, adds an on-the-ground detail: a harpoon launcher sits on the between-day shop shelf, right next to a powder keg (and, memorably, a rubber duck whose effect the reviewer never worked out). That review also notes that "the weapons have character," naming flamethrowers, mortars, and harpoons specifically.

What no supplied source states: harpoon damage values, cooldown timers, range in meters, pierce counts, or rarity tiers. Any It's About Pirates harpoon guide quoting those numbers precisely is quoting something outside the verified record.

A short list of what you can safely assume

• Harpoons are a purchasable weapon family found in the shop between days at sea.
• They coexist in a pool with flamethrowers, mortars, and other upgrades.
• Their performance is shaped by documented items and other in-run upgrades; any effect from the 150+ collectible ship parts is for reference only until verified.

Manual vs. Automatic Aiming for Harpoon Builds

The press kit lists "automatic or manual aiming" as a headline feature, and the review confirms the trade-off: guns fire on their own "or by hand depending on your choice." That single toggle changes how a harpoon plays far more than most build decisions, so this It's About Pirates harpoon guide treats it as step one.

Use manual aiming when the target matters. The review singles out sea monsters as "good boss fights." A named, high-health target is exactly the situation where hand-aimed harpoon shots make sense — you know where the shot should go, and you have time to line it up.

Use automatic aiming when the screen gets loud. The same review describes late runs as an "endgame where the screen fills with explosions and you no longer really understand what is happening." In that chaos, manual shots are a distraction. Let the ship fire.

Respect the ship's inertia

One of the review's strongest points is that steering a ship — with its inertia — changes how the survivors formula feels. You don't escape by spinning on the spot. You take wide turns. You get pinned against an island. For a harpoon build, that means positioning is a weapon upgrade in itself: keep a lane open behind you before you commit to a slow turn, and don't let an island corner turn a boss fight into a wall.

How to Test a Harpoon Loadout Without Wasting a Run

The press kit advertises over 140 items to shape your build and separately over 150 ship parts to collect, plus 6 factions with unique abilities and 10 captains. Treat the documented items, captain, faction, and weapon choices as build variables; any harpoon effect from the 150+ collectible ship parts is for reference only until verified.

1. Pick a baseline. Run the same captain and faction for several attempts so you can tell whether the harpoon or the surrounding items made the difference.
2. Buy the harpoon launcher early. Grab it the first time it appears in the shop rather than waiting for a "perfect" setup. Early acquisition gives you more days of data.
3. Log one thing per run. Did the harpoon carry the mid-game? Did it fall off against sea monsters? That single note is worth more than a spreadsheet of guesses.
4. Stress-test in Endless mode. The press kit confirms an Endless mode, which is the cleanest place to find out where a harpoon build stops scaling — no adventure endpoint to cut the test short.

Because the press kit frames build-crafting as combining "deadly weapons, powerful items, and a fearless captain," the harpoon is best judged as one leg of that tripod. A harpoon that feels weak may simply be a captain or faction mismatch, and vice versa.

Shop Strategy Between Days at Sea

The review describes the loop clearly: scoop up loot, then spend it in a shop between days of sailing, where the harpoon launcher shares shelf space with powder kegs and novelty items. The shop also has a reroll button.

That reroll button is the most misused mechanic for anyone following an It's About Pirates harpoon guide. Two rules keep it honest:

• Set a reroll budget before you enter the shop. Decide how much loot you're willing to burn hunting for a harpoon launcher, and stop when you hit it.
• Don't reroll past a run-defining item. If the shelf already holds something that fixes a weakness — survivability, wave clear — take it. A second harpoon you never fire is worth less than the item that keeps you alive to fire the first one.

Community reports, including the reviewer's rubber-duck anecdote, suggest the shop includes items with unclear effects. Treat mystery purchases as experiments, not as build foundations, until you've seen what they do across a full run.

Confirmed It's About Pirates Details at a Glance

Feature counts above are developer-stated, not independently measured; the €9.98 figure is the Euro price InsertCoins recorded in its 2026-11-06 review. Both are dated snapshots. Check the It's About Pirates page on Steam for live pricing and availability.

FAQ

Is there a confirmed harpoon damage stat for It's About Pirates? No supplied source publishes harpoon damage, cooldown, or range figures. The press kit and the InsertCoins review confirm the harpoon exists as a weapon family and appears as a shop item called a harpoon launcher, but nothing more granular.

Should I use manual aiming with harpoons? Try manual against sea monsters, which the review calls good boss fights, and automatic when the screen fills with explosions late in a run. Testing both on the same captain is the fastest way to settle it.

Where does this It's About Pirates harpoon guide fall short? It intentionally avoids invented numbers. If you need exact values, the game's own interface is the authority — check weapon details in-game or on the Steam store page for the current build.

Does the harpoon work in Endless mode? Endless mode is confirmed as a feature, and it's the best place to find out how far a harpoon build scales. Use it as your test bench rather than as proof of a tier list.