Voyage Century Online is a free nautical MMORPG developed by Snail Games and published by IGG, the distributors of Myth War Online. There is also a European distribution of the game that goes under the name of Bounty Bay Online which is published by Frogster. It is set in 17th century Earth and features accurate historical representations of several coastal cities. Players are not required to choose a career path at the beginning of the game. This gives players a rather varied gameplay in which you can either specialize in one skill and trade for resources, or make use of all the skills. (i.e. You are strictly a tailor and want to make clothing. You can pay someone who can fight to gather wool for you, or you can learn to fight and gather it yourself. etc.) Combat occurs both on land and on the sea, where players risk the threat of pirates when venturing further from the more populated areas. The game profits off of optional cash shop items that are available for players to purchase with real money. Unlike many other MMORPGs where players can only succeed through battle, Voyage Century Online gives players the option of embarking on several unique professions.

There are three types of ships in Voyage Century: the Battle Ship, Raider Ship and Merchant ships. The battle ship is able to hold the most amount of cannons and can take the most amount of damage. The raider is the fastest ship and can hold the most amount of sailors. The merchant ship is the slowest ship of all and does not do well in battle but it has the highest loading capacity. Players are able to own 5 ships. There are 12 levels of ships along with a special, beginner-only ship called the "Dragon Head Gunboat". Each type of ship is leveled up differently. The Battle Ship is leveled by fighting other ships in the battlefields. The raider is leveled up by exploring and spending time at sea and the merchant ship is leveled by trading. Once a ship has met the requirements, players must gather or buy the necessary materials needed to upgrade the ship. The Dragon Head Gunboat is a newly introduced ship which is given to new players. It is roughly equivalent to a level 5 battle ship and can go very fast but has a somewhat limited loading capacity. Also, you can encounter steering problems with the gunboat.

Skill levels, or the sum of them, determine a player`s level. Each skill is currently capped at 120, and skills, with the exception of Voyage, is capped at level 31 unless promoted into the second phase. Players can promote a maximum of eight skills (9 skills for an extra 5million silver), after that, players must obtain a skill promoting book (either from the item mall or other players) to promote other skills. Stunts are subskills within a skill, once a skill gets to the end of phase two which is level 100 you can then promote the skill into phase 3, and continue leveling that skill up to level 120.

While any player can wield a weapon, the battle system creates characters that excel in combat. This system includes combatants on both land and sea, and also consists of pirates. The pirates are not a big threat, unless you are totally ambushed. There is always flotsam and jetsam on the water for you to pick up. Also, as you are on the high seas, there is chance of imperial ship attacks. "Imperial" in this case means attacked by country`s ships. Depends on amity, you should stay clear of ships unless you want to kill them. Notice also that the high seas is a PvP area, so you can get blasted to kingdom come by Royal Highnesses, and the super gangsters. So, stock up with the newest stuff you can get!

The exploration system is one part of the game which has a lot of content and a huge scope for the player to explore. The exploration system is the long, vast, ocean inside Voyage Century Online. Thus, the exploration system holds a large amount of the file. This is because the ocean is much larger than the land in Voyage Century, a more realistic figure compared to other MMORPGs which may have little or even no seas. Voyagers may come across islands, passages, and many other interesting obstacles while sailing the seas. Some of these obstacles are storms, pirates and even other players. Luckily, there are also patrolling NPC ships and privateers to help you. The ocean is actually a scaled down map of the earth`s oceans with some variations.

In order to get discoveries, players need to sail on the high sea and look for sparkling spots near the shore, which means that something special is hiding nearby. Players can begin their exploration by clicking the explore button in the operation menu and input the number of sailors dispatched. Equipping higher level telescopes is needed in order to get higher level discoveries. You need the correspondenting level manouvrebility level and ship lvl. Players will acquire the discovery logbook of their findings if they find something. By giving the discovery logbook to the authenticator, the players can get some money and boost their reputation. Higher level discoveries offer more money and reputation, reputation is your social standing in the world. Reputation is used to gain higher noble titles, higher level noble titles allow a user to wield equipment that is stronger than a regular equipment. For example, an ensign command falchion that requires 11 falchion and level 2 noble title, is much stronger than a weapon that requires 17 falchion.