Pay your loot: Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag pre-orders open on Steam

I guess this Edward didn’t bother pre-ordering, so he doesn’t have the Magical Golden Scimitars of Captain Drake or whatever.

Avast! Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag, the pirate-y adventures of assassin Edward Kenway, has landed on the shores of Steampowered. Pay it £39.99 or £44.99 and it’ll let you accompany it on its adventures when it sets sail on 22 November.

Or, to remove the crap metaphors and pirate talk: Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag is now open for pre-orders on Steam. The regular edition will cost you £39.99, while the fancy-pants Digital Deluxe edition is demanding £44.99.

If you pre-order either edition, though, you get access to three bonus packs. Captain Kenway’s Legacy Pack will offer you Golden Scimitars and a multiplayer Treasure Hunter costume; Pirates’ Bounty Pack throws in German Rapiers and a Compass relic; and the Sacrificed Secrets Pack give you a “dangerous treasure-hunting mission on Sacrifice Island”, and lets you unlock “Captain Drake’s Dual Swords and Pistols, Picture, Title, and Relics.” I quoted that last bit because, while I suspect that means that you get a picture, a title, and some relics as well as the swords and pistols, it’s a bit ambiguous. Maybe it just lets you give yourself the Captain Drake’s Dual Swords and Pistols title online, or something. I dunno.

Interestingly, the Digital Deluxe edition offers even more pre-order stuff in the form of the Trove of Mystery. This pack gives you the Matched Golden Swords and Treasure Hunter costume, picture, and title; the Ivory Wheel, and a Cartographer picture, relic, title, and emblem. Again: ambiguity. Not quite sure what all of that means. Also a bit odd as it looks like Captain Kenway’s Legacy Pack gives you the Treasure Hunter costume anyway but oh I don’t know.

The Digital Deluxe edition itself (as in, “this is what your extra £5 is for”) gives you The Castaway’s Prize (The German Rapiers, The Discoverer picture, title, relic, and emblem) and the Aveline DLC, granting you control of Assassin’s Creed: Liberation protagonist Aveline as she takes on three missions and tracks down a First Civilization artifact. Whew.

We’d obviously recommend you hold off for our review but if you’re certain you’re going to buy it anyway, then hey, some of that pre-order stuff doesn’t look awful. The option’s there if you want it, and you’ve got a month to make up your mind.