Sea Of Thieves Is Certainly Swashbuckling But Is It Enough

Having previously resided on Steam, Coffee Stain Publishing and Ghost Ship Games' Deep Rock Galactic is landing exclusively at console launch on the Xbox One, giving you the opportunity to co-operatively shoot your foes in FPS fash


It wasn't too long ago that Bandai Namco announced Code Vein . However, with its announcement, details of which platform it would be coming to was unknown. Until today, at least. Code Vein has been announced for Xbox One, with an enhanced version coming to the Xbox On

One of Microsoft's strongest franchises -- the racing simulator Forza Motorsport -- was given its seventh installment announcement, showing impressively alluring gameplay smoothly operating at an impressive 4K and 60 FPS on Xbox On

And yet…as pleasing as it was to eventually get to grips with the ship’s functions — jostling between control of the wheel and micro-managing of the sails, during solo sessions — or as enticing the next island on the horizon was to make landfall over, it’s hard not to come away from Sea of Thieves and think: "OK…but what else is there?" Admittedly while the beta did restrict activities to purely hunting down treasure, to say the more "in-between" segments — the mundane segments if you will — proved to be the more entertaining and/or insightful segments brings up a worrying and (potentially) lacking hook that Sea of Thieves’ gameplay sorely needs.


While this is all speculation, the short preview trailer hints at each of these and more for Sea of Thieves . It also hints at the use of megaservers to bring together dozens of players at once in the vast open worlds. Megaservers have become increasingly popular for large open-world multiplayer games that require massive power to handle the plethora of gamers playing and activities happening at any mom

What do you think about Sea of Thieves not being free-to-play? Is it fair for developers to still take this approach to multiplayer content, or has the era of paid multiplayer business models started to fade away? Let us know in the comments be

For someone who was initially miffed about Rare going the way of a massively-multiplayer, online experience — and admittedly heralding a much lower level of excitement as a result — the outcome, after a fair number of days at [virtual] sea in the closed beta, are more upbeat. Albeit, still mixed in a number of ways. Let’s start with the positives and work our way down: Sea of Thieves has a peculiar degree of charm to it. Perhaps not to the same degree of colorful personality of previous titles, but subtly present nonetheless. Anyone who’s followed Rare for a long time will instantly recognize the degree of care and consideration for the details, both grand and minuscule in equal measure. The glare of the sun as you swim your way back to your ship, the ruffle of paper as you scour your chartered map for the desired island to reach; even the way your on-board lanterns flicker and crackle as the waves collide and risk snuffing out the flames.


In traditional E3 fashion, Microsoft brought numerous game developers on stage to share and discuss their upcoming games on Xbox One. One of those developers, Rare, revealed a new set of classic Rare games coming in a new collection called Rare Repl

Sea of Thieves is meant to capture the spirit of adventure children have when they play. There is no convoluted tutorial that spans many hours, being that the theme of the game is pirates it is assumed most people have a general idea of what it is pirates do so you can hop into the game, raise the anchor, lower the sails, and set off looking for booty to plunder. Whether the quest involves fighting, treasure hunting, exploration, or just drunken hedonism, the goal is to hang out with people and have a good time. This looks like a great way for you and some friends to get together and live out the fantasy of going on a pirate adventure without getting seasick or losing a hand to a crocodile.

Of course, the abundance of open water does inevitably lend itself to islands to stop by and pillage -- hearkening, of course, to the more casual affairs of Wind Waker and the game does indeed share many similarities — obvious or otherwise, good and bad. But if anything, Seaofthievesfans.com Sea of Thieves reminds me more so of Jalopy — a rather unexciting-yet-ironically-stimulating simulation of driving one’s car down a highway. And just like that game, there’s an uncanny loft of satisfaction to be had in the mundane and the repetitive. Particularly when you’re lucky enough to land yourself with a crew equally as focused as yourself...and not just there to troll or ruin the fun for everyone's sake, which sadly me and a friend got paired up with on our venturing for treasure. Disappointing as it is for some to play mutiny (albeit unintentionally) and ride your ship away from the island you’re stuck on, perhaps that’s just part of the general risk. After all, this is a game about pirates; just like the Souls games, the anarchy and unruliness of the real world bleed fittingly into the context of the premise.