A pirate world you set your own pace in
Salt 2 drops you on an island with nothing, and your first job is to gather enough resources to build a raft and get off it. From there the game opens up: a procedurally generated ocean with no fixed route, where you pick a direction and sail. Islands are generated too, but the points of interest inside them are hand crafted — caves, crypts, ruins, temples, pirate forts, seaports and camps, with over 200 unique dungeons holding loot, puzzles and lore. You navigate with a compass and a sextant, reading map coordinates to reach places you have marked. Along the way you can follow the main storyline, or join guilds and take commissions and quests from townsfolk and merchants when you dock.
Progression runs on levels and skills. Leveling up unlocks new world tiers, and each higher tier brings tougher enemies and rarer loot. Gear works like a classic RPG loot system: armor and weapons come in different rarities with randomized stats and talents, so a crafted high-level piece and a sword dropped by a pirate captain are both worth chasing. Combat is PvE only — legendary pirates, skeletons, bosses and wildlife — and there is no naval combat and no threat from other players while you explore.
Playing it with a group
Salt 2 supports online co-op for up to 5 friends, so a full crew is six players including you. Everyone sails the same world, and the ship acts as a shared mobile base rather than something one person owns. That gives the group a natural split of jobs: someone steers and reads the sextant, someone fishes off the deck, someone cooks, someone heads inland to clear a dungeon. Since the world is procedurally generated and non-linear, the crew decides together where to point the bow — chase the main quest, hunt a world boss, or sit on a shore and fish for an evening.
Because the design prioritizes cooperative PvE, there is no risk of another crew ambushing you and taking your progress. The ship is also where the group's shared work shows: over 100 ship decorations can be placed almost anywhere on the vessel, so the crew can build a home at sea together rather than just passing through it.
What to know before you start
Expect survival mechanics alongside the adventure. Food matters: fish with a lure, hunt wildlife with a bow, then cook what you catch. There are over 50 meal recipes, and many give passive benefits on top of keeping you alive, so cooking is worth doing regularly rather than only when hungry. You can craft, cook and fish while traveling, which keeps downtime on the boat useful.
The game is nonlinear by design. There is no prescribed order to the world, and you set the tempo — a long quest chain one session, a quiet fishing trip the next. It is playable solo as well as in co-op, so a group can start together without needing everyone online at once. The world is first-person, colorful and open-ended, built by Lavaboots Studios, a two-person team.