Cutthroats sails again on Windows 10 and 11

The original game, working

Cutthroats shipped in 1999 for Windows 95 and 98. On a current PC it needs compatibility settings, a 256-colour display mode and a CD in the drive, and it still crashes. This patch replaces the game's program with a 64-bit rebuild that runs directly on Windows 10 and 11.

It is the same game: the same rules, balance, economy, ships, artwork, fonts, music, speech, movies and save files. It is not a remaster and adds no new features.

Install

1. Install Cutthroats from your CD with the Full installation, so the Video folder is copied, or copy the whole CD into a folder. The game should be at V1 P7, the last official English patch. Older data was not tested.
2. Make a copy of the installed game folder, for example C:\Games\Cutthroats Classic. The patch never changes your original install; use the copy.
3. Unzip the patch into that copy, beside its Audio, Data, Graphics, gfx and Video folders.
4. Double-click Play Cutthroats Classic.cmd.

Saved games

Saves and Cutthroats.cfg stay in the game folder in the original format. Back up SavedGames\ before you start, as you would with any patch.

Display and sound

The game runs in a window scaled by the largest whole multiple that fits your screen, with sharp original pixels. Rename classic-settings.example.cmd to classic-settings.cmd to change the window size, scaling or smoothing, or to pick another sound driver if audio is distorted.

Steam Deck, Linux and Mac

The patch is a Windows program. It starts under Wine and is expected to work under Proton and CrossOver, but those are not supported. From the game folder: wine cmd /c "Play Cutthroats Classic.cmd"

What is fixed

Runs on modern Windows

• A 64-bit program: no DirectDraw or DirectSound compatibility settings, no 256-colour mode switch, no SafeDisc.
• Movies play through a built-in decoder, not the 1998 SMACKW32.DLL.
• The window keeps responding during loading screens, fades and music changes.
• Music and sound no longer stutter, repeat or cut out.

Crashes

• Governor audiences, trials and the prize court, dividing the plunder, cannon orders and town attacks.
• Leaving a battle by rowing boat, burying treasure, buying a ship, and quitting the game.

Freezes

• Land battles that hung while placing troops.
• Crew starvation and recruitment loops that never ended.
• The Caribbean map ignoring all input after the arrival panel closed.

Saved games

• A short or damaged save is refused before your running campaign is torn down.
• Shipyard preview ships no longer come back as phantom crewless boats that end the career with a false "fleet lost".

Lost or duplicated gold, cargo and crew

• Gold carried by a ship you sell now reaches your hoard.
• Cargo and sailors no longer vanish when moved between dock and ships.
• Giving a ship to a governor no longer gives away its officers, passengers and prisoners.
• Accepting one treasure map no longer removes the others.

Not changed, on purpose

Prices, wages, towns, governor moods and rewards, crew loyalty, food and morale, trials, combat strength and AI, and campaign length. Harmless 1999 quirks stay as they were.

Read the full technical list of fixes

How a 1999 game got a 2026 patch

There is no source code for Cutthroats. What survives is a 1.3 MB 32-bit Windows program from 1999, written for DirectDraw and a CD drive.

In September 2026 the work started from that program: about 1,700 functions, read in the Ghidra disassembler and written back out as C one at a time, each one carrying its original address and checked against the original machine instructions.

Once the recovered code could be compiled, it was rebuilt as a 64-bit program on a modern display, input and sound layer. Running 1999 code as 64-bit exposed dozens of memory faults the original only survived by luck. Tracing reported crashes back through the recovered source found the rest: 273 corrected sites in total, every one recorded with what the original did and what the patch does now.

The rule throughout was to fix defects and leave the game alone. If the original did something odd but harmless, it still does.

Download

SHA-256

To check your download, open PowerShell in the folder that holds the zip and run:

Licences

The patch uses SDL2 (zlib licence), libsmacker (LGPL 2.1) and stb_image; their licences are inside the zip. The libsmacker relink kit (2.5 MB) is provided as the LGPL requires.

What's next

The work on this patch has grown into a new pirate game. Details will be posted here first.

One email when there is something to play. Nothing else.