I totally get what you mean. The Caribbean is what I'd consider the "easy" option as it's what we're most familiar with. In this case, it also fits well with our fictional premise of a united pirate faction making a comeback after the end of the Golden Age of Piracy, with the goal of capturing colonies for their own gains. (I'll expand on this premise later! )Although I can't help feeling a bit disappointed each time a new pirate/nautical game is announced and is always set in the Caribbean. As I always say, and maybe it's only me, I fear the genre is stagnant because new settings are not being explored, and even very different games produce a deja vu effect with all the old tropes of palm trees, lush jungle islands, yohoho and bottles of rum, which I have nothing against but I'm getting tired of.
That said, I've been reading the first couple of Aubrey/Maturin books lately, and that's got me wanting to explore the Mediterranean as a setting. That's probably beyond the scope of this game, but we'll see how it goes after launch.