New games start with a short back story: An evil Spanish nobleman, the Marquis de Montalban, enslaves the hero's family because the family is unable to pay their debt to him when the fleet of ships under their control is lost at sea. The hero, at this time a boy, manages to evade capture. Ten years later, the boy, now an adult, enters a bar, where he is given a list of options to define his name, difficulty level, special skill, and preferred era. After selecting these, the player must choose which nation to initially sail with: the English, Dutch, Spanish, or French.