There’s no on-screen map in Sea of Thieves in the traditional sense, as it’s stored on a table on board your ship. Someone will also have to steer you safely around random rocks, away from enemy pirate ships, and toward the correct island to find hidden treasure chests. You’ll need to raise the anchor, set the angle of the sails, and lower them to gather speed. Sea of Thieves is designed around friendly teamwork and communication, so players can go on joint adventures together as a team.

But the game is best enjoyed aboard the larger four-player ship. If you picked the three- or four-player experience, then you’ll get a larger pirate ship, or you can play alone or with a friend on a smaller ship. Your ship will differ in size depending on how many other players you’re playing with. You’re thrown into a pub on a safe harbor island with your fellow teammates, where you can get drunk (a process that will literally make you feel physically and virtually dizzy) or set sail aboard a ship.

There’s no storyline, no dedicated single player experience, and not even an on-screen HUD to distract you from your surroundings. When you first set sail in Sea of Thieves, it’s a relatively simple experience. Microsoft and Rare now need to harness that early fun to steer Sea of Thieves in the right direction so it’s lively for years to come. It’s the kind of online game that will clearly change over time, and it could be a surprise hit this year after months of careful game tweaks in response to community feedback. It’s a game that’s had me smiling almost as much as playing Super Mario Odyssey.ĭespite its impending release, Sea of Thieves still feels like a work in progress, a constantly evolving and living world. It’s an experience I’ve enjoyed playing both during the beta and a visit to Rare, all while blasting rival pirate ships with cannon balls and digging up secret treasure chests from islands. Sea of Thieves is a refreshingly ambitious game, aiming to tempt players into a big, open world multiplayer environment where you can get attacked by rival pirate ships, fired upon by skeletons from islands you’re passing by, or be snatched from your crow’s nest by giant sea monsters.

It’s been teased for years, and it sets sail next month as Microsoft’s big new Xbox One and PC exclusive where console players can battle PC gamers for buried treasure. The studio has been stuck making Kinect games for Microsoft’s discontinued Xbox accessory in recent years, and Sea of Thieves is an impressive return to form. British video game developer Rare, creator of classics like Battletoads, GoldenEye 007, and Banjo-Kazooie, has moved in a new direction with the upcoming pirate game Sea of Thieves. I’ve spent hours pretending to be a pirate, eating bananas in a peculiar fashion, smiling until I cried, and getting drunk to the point of dizziness - all with the help of an Xbox controller.

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