Outright Games seem to be trying out something a little bit different. Over the past couple of weeks, they have delivered additional content for two games that did the business for them in 2021. There’s a three-level boost to their PJ Masks: Heroes of the Night game, and also this, the Pirate Adventures DLC (Switch, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC), which brings a new birthday party and four new areas for owners of My Friend Peppa Pig to explore. It’s not backed up by achievements, but it’s substantial enough to dive into with a DLC review.
It’s Danny Dog’s birthday, and his parents clearly need a lesson in preparation, as you get an invite to his party on the morning of the big day. If you’re wondering where this is triggered, push your little’un to explore the hallway in the pig household: the telephone will ring, and picking it up starts the birthday sequence.
Not only is it last-minute, but it’s fancy-dress. Luckily, Danny Dog has a box of pirate costumes for you to wear. Confusingly, you don’t get a choice of costume on arrival, but can find a dressing up box in the forest around Danny’s house.
The DLC introduces several new areas, with the starting point being Danny Dog’s house. If you ever want to return, it’s accessible from the crossroads just before the hot-air balloon in the forest. From Danny’s house, there’s a chain of new areas, all linked to the events of the party.
Captain Dog, Danny’s dad (unfortunately not voiced by the original Alexander Armstrong) has a plan for the party, which is to recover four pirate treasures which make up the ‘Lost Treasure of the Pirates’. They are, in order, some buried treasure, a confrontation at Captain Hog’s Hideout (Peppa’s dad, with a chance to ham it up), Treasure Island and the Caves of Gloom.
Each of these areas is a couple of screens in size, and you can travel between them by boat, with control of said boat being handed to you. It’s not complicated: just a movement left and right. They each have an objective – avoiding Captain Hog by hiding behind bushes, or using a metal detector to find treasure in the Caves of Gloom – but, like the rest of the game, there are scattered interactions that can be activated with the A button. Some of the best include feeding some ducks (with bread, though – bad form) and constructing a mega-sandcastle.
In terms of size, we’d estimate that it’s about a quarter of the full-game proper. It took us about twenty minutes to play through, and will likely take younger players up to double that. More importantly, it’s roughly the same quality as the rest of the game. If your children lapped up the gentle pace and complete lack of complexity, then Peppa Pig Pirate Adventures is very much a continuation. The only sticking point is the stealthy ‘red light-green light’ section in the middle, which you might need to help them with. It punishes failure by restarting you earlier in the puzzle, which feels a bit much and could cause infuriation.
If there’s a criticism, it’s that some interactions are overly familiar. We’ve rung the bell on boats, built sandcastles and gone digging before in My Friend Peppa Pig. And while the party sounds adventurous, it’s mostly travelling to familiar locations – beaches, forests – that your children have been to before. The repetition didn’t seem to irk our children, so yours might be fine too. We were just raising the odd eyebrow at the cutting of corners.Â
Overall, My Friend Peppa Pig: Pirate Adventures amounts to forty minutes of gameplay for £5, supplementing a game that was thin on content in the first place. It might not capitalise on the high-adventure that it promised at the start, but we don’t have much in the way of hesitation in recommending it if your children enjoyed the full game: it’s of a similar quality, and snugly adds several new areas to the existing world.Â
You can buy My Friend Peppa Pig: Peppa Pig Pirate Adventures from the Xbox Store
