It's About Pirates Controls: Steering, Aiming, and Controller Tips

Your cannons in It's About Pirates fire on their own, so the real skill sits in how you steer, where you point the hull, and which firing mode you trust. Learning It's About Pirates controls matters more than any single weapon pickup, because a broadside angled away from the swarm does nothing no matter how many upgrades you have stacked. Below is what the official Steam listing, the Steam Community hub, and early player footage actually show about steering, aiming, controller support, and the settings worth checking before your first run.

What "Controls" Actually Means on a Pirate Ship

You are not piloting a character. You are commanding a vessel with weapon slots mounted in specific positions, and every weapon fires on its own timing. In a detailed demo playthrough, the creator opened a run with eight cannons and two harpoons already installed, and repeatedly stressed that you have to turn the ship's board toward enemies for attacks to connect.

That framing explains a lot of early frustration. Your damage output is a function of hull angle plus weapon placement plus reload rate, not of how fast you click. The store page confirms this design by listing automatic or manual aiming as a headline feature, which means the game expects you to manage orientation first and fire direction second.

Aiming Modes: Automatic vs. Manual

The Steam listing advertises both automatic and manual aiming without documenting a default keybinding or toggle location, so plan to check the options menu on your first launch. What the demo footage does show is that weapons fire on their own logic rather than on a reticle you drag around the screen.

In that playthrough, the creator noted that the mortar sits in a central slot while side-slot weapons like flamethrowers cover the flanks, and that he could not set target priority — the ship simply engaged the nearest or most convenient enemy. Treat that as player experience from a pre-release demo, not a guaranteed final-build rule, but it does explain why heavy weapons sometimes chew through small ships while a boss sits untouched.

Two practical habits follow from that:

• Rotate deliberately so your highest-damage weapons face the thickest part of the wave, rather than drifting sideways through it.
• Because It's About Pirates controls give you no target-priority menu in the demo, treat positioning as your only real way to redirect fire.

Steering, Sailing Speed, and the Arena Edge

Steering is where new captains lose runs. Two things make it harder than it looks: the ship has momentum, and the playable area is bounded. Players in the Steam Community reviews describe the maps as small and the day timer as tight, which turns every turn into a trade-off between collecting loot and staying clear of the boundary.

The good news is that the developer has been adjusting steering feel directly. Update #1, posted to the Steam Community hub on November 7, mentions that the suggestion to try "direction-relative" steering now appears more often when a player has collected only a small amount of gold. In plain terms: if you are struggling early, the game may nudge you toward an alternate steering scheme that is easier to handle. Look for that prompt rather than assuming your current setup is the only option.

Speed is upgradeable, too. In the demo footage, the player hired a sail maker specifically to raise sailing speed, then stacked more crew to push it higher. Faster hull rotation and faster travel both make your It's About Pirates controls feel tighter, which is often worth more than a flat damage item early in a run.

Controller, Keyboard, and Steam Deck Status

Input support is the one area where the official page is genuinely helpful. Here is the supported picture, dated so you know exactly what was observed:

The controller recommendation lines up with how the game plays: analog steering beats tapping keys when your hull has weight and the arena is small. Update #1 also fixed a controller navigation issue in the tavern, so menu work is smoother now than it was at release on November 6, 2026.

One caveat worth knowing: a Steam Community thread from a player reported the game failing to load with an "il2cpp" error after a recent update, and another reported full system freezes. These are individual community reports rather than confirmed widespread problems, but if your It's About Pirates controls stop responding at launch, verify your files and check the community hub before assuming your hardware is at fault.

Settings and Post-Launch Changes That Affect Handling

The build that shipped has already changed in ways that affect how the game handles. Per the Steam Community hub as of 2026-11-09:

• Difficulty levels were added in Update #1 (posted November 7). Easy grants more gold, reduces damage taken, and lets you kill enemies faster, at the cost of a lower leaderboard multiplier.
• Auto-save arrived in Update #2, so adventures now save automatically.
• Ship's Bells were added in Update #2 as a main-menu customization that grants run-long bonuses and boosts gem value.
• Weapon and officer upgrades now show a before-and-after comparison, which makes it much easier to judge whether a purchase actually helps your layout before you commit.
• The Treasure Map item no longer appears in the item pool after Day 9.

There is also an open community request about auto-upgrade ordering — a player asked whether the auto-upgrade could alternate left and right as it moves front to back instead of filling the left side first. As of the same 2026-11-09 snapshot that request is a suggestion, not a documented change, so manual upgrades remain the safer choice if you care about slot balance.

A Short Practice Routine for New Captains

If you want your first hour to go better than the reviewers who bounced off the early days, work through this sequence:

1. Open the options menu before sailing and confirm whether aiming is set to automatic or manual, then pick the one that matches your input device.
2. Spend your first two level-ups on crew that raise reload and sailing rather than raw damage; both stats directly improve how responsive the ship feels.
3. Practice circling the arena boundary once per run so you learn where the damage edge begins before a boss fight forces you there.
4. Keep a repair source in your build. Demo footage shows crew members dying to chip damage, and replacing them costs gold you would rather spend on weapons.
5. Watch for the steering suggestion prompt after a poor early haul — it is the developer's own hint that a different steering mode may suit you.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do It's About Pirates controls work better with a controller? The developers recommend a controller on the Steam store page, and both Xbox and PlayStation controllers are listed as supported as of 2026-11-09. Keyboard play is not documented in that snapshot, so check the in-game settings menu for the current bindings.

Can I aim my cannons manually? Yes — the store page lists automatic or manual aiming as a feature. The exact toggle location is not published, so look through the options menu; in demo footage the weapons otherwise fired on their own logic with no target-priority setting.

Why do my weapons seem to ignore the biggest enemy? Based on player experience with the demo, weapons engage nearby targets automatically and give you no priority list. Turning the hull so your heaviest slot faces the boss is the most reliable workaround until you confirm the behavior in your own build.

Where can I find an official list of keybinds? There is no keybind list on the official It's About Pirates Steam page as of 2026-11-09. Check the in-game controls screen and the Steam Community hub, where patch notes for Update #1 and Update #2 document input-related fixes.