Steampunk airships? Swashbuckling freedom as far as the horizon? Great, floating piles of gold waiting for some cunning cur to claim them? These are the dreams of the scourges of the sky: sky pirates! All the fun of swishing swords, walking sideways, and looking through one eye but thousands of feet above the ground (if there even is a ground to begin with).

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While there are plenty of examples of sky pirates in video games (and regular pirates, for that matter), only a handful of titles put players' hands on the wheel of their very own airship. These titles give gamers the chance to get their sky-legs while searching for (and pillaging) all the skyward booty buried out in a world of weightless, floating islands that they can carry.

6 Final Fantasy 12: Revenant Wings

Throughout Final Fantasy 12, street urchin and prosthetic abs enthusiast Vaan makes it abundantly clear that his dream is to someday become a sky pirate with his own ship. This is (sort of) realized when he meets the actual lead character of the game (or one of them, since it certainly isn't Vaan), Balthier, a true, bonafide skybuckler with a mighty airship to boot, the Stahl.

It isn't until Revenant Wings that Vaan actually gets a shot at legitimately living out his dream, in turn finally becoming the protagonist in a pixilated, real-time strategy RPG of his own. Vaan and his childhood friend Penelo take to the legendary floating continent Lemures in search of mythical hoards of treasure. Besides being useful to get around, Vaan's airship is highly customizable and acts as a cool little hub environment for quests, hanging out, and crafting upgrades.

5 Crimson Skies: High Road To Revenge

Half of the appeal of steam-powered sky piracy is the total freedom allowed by air travel. Having command over a mobile base and taking no orders from anyone is just as important as all the treasure hauling and enemy ship boarding. Since there isn't a freer place than the United States, it makes sense that someone would combine the concepts of lone wandering and airship corsairs.

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In Crimson Skies: High Road To Revenge, the player takes the role of Nathan Zachary, the head of the Fortune Hunters pirates, who cross the skies in a fascinating alternative timeline version of 1930s America. Much of the game is spent flying planes, fighting off other pirate crews, and doing missions in the open skies, but the Fortune Hunters make their home base on a giant zeppelin (another word for airship) called the Pandora.

4 Guns Of Icarus

For gamers craving a frantic, immersive, crew-based ship-to-ship shooter, Guns of Icarus is certainly one of the better options. Players are thrust into teams of four and pitted against other players or enemy AI in a battle for air supremacy. Whether it's facing off against other human players or going up against NPCs, the Guns of Icarus experience is best enjoyed with friends.

Anyone with three salty dogs to bring along as crewmates will have a blast. Just make sure that the blasts aren't happening to the ship. Once those diesel-punk monsters go down, the whole team goes down, too. Recommended for those with a talent for teamwork, tactics, and controlling a tenacious trigger finger because no matter the mode, it takes a team effort to win the day.

3 Pirate101

Colorful and family-friendly, Pirate101 is a swashbuckling MMO set in the skies and a spin-off of another massively online game, Wizard101. With plenty of humor and a decent enough story to pull the experience together, gamers of all ages can enjoy crewing an airboat and mastering the skyways. Although it is a little old, because of the stylized character and environmental design, the visuals hold up surprisingly well.

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Being an MMO, there's plenty of room for customization for players, including their characters, ships, and crew. One thing that does hold Pirate101 back (or perhaps is thematically appropriate) is the lack of continued developer support and as well as some slightly-aggressive monetization as there is a subscription fee to pay on top of there being an in-game microtransaction store.

2 Black Skylands

While it's light on looting and treasure hunting and puts the player in more of a "sky cop" role, putting unruly pirates in their place, its impeccable visual style and exploratory design philosophy perfectly encapsulate all the romance of steampunk sky piracy just as well. Players will get to experience piracy first-hand, as enemies tend to loot stuff from the airship's hold if the player isn't paying enough attention.

From the fluid ship-to-ship shooting to the small stuff, like the upgrades and ship selection UI, a lot of art went into making an engaging and eye-catching experience. So, for any air corsair fans who enjoy fast-paced, top-down shooters with base building, top-down combat (aerial and on foot), and multi-leveled open-world exploration, Black Skylands might well be a hidden gem waiting to be dug up.

1 Skies Of Arcadia

It's astounding that gamers everywhere aren't seeing a regular release of Skies of Arcadia sequels year after year, given the excellence of this 2000 Dreamcast RPG (and later GameCube port, Legends), perhaps because of the game's poor sales. However, the game went on to become a cult classic, as many gamers will cite it as one of their favorite RPGs of all time.

The player takes on the role of not just sky pirates but explorers as they chart the maps of the sky isles. The adventure is brimming with bombastic set pieces, infectious comradery between the cast, and some truly unforgettable world-building brought to life by Skies' "discovery" system, which highlights special locations and divulges lore upon their unearthing.

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