This is one of the games I'm most excited about in 2017.
Some Quick Facts:
- What is it? Rare's upcoming open-world Pirate odyssey
- When's it out? At some point in 2017
- What can I play it on? Xbox One and PC
Read on for everything I know so far about Rare's pirate odyssey.
What is Sea of Thieves?
Sea of Thieves is a pirated-themed action-adventure where you and your friends will be able to team up and become the mightiest pirates in the whole realm. You'll be able to plunder seas and island, fight other pirate ships, discover treasure maps and then working with your team to find the best treasure in the world.
Sea of Thieves is heavily co-operative and really you'll really need to depend on your team to achieve anything, even though there is combat elements, the most difficult part is organizing your ship. You guys will need to figure out how to operate a ship efficiently with everybody having their own task and you'll have to communicate if you want to avoid accidentally doubling up on tasks.
Enemy Pirates will be able to breach your hull with their own cannons and then you'll need to fix the hole again. One Person has to fix the hole with timber, another person has to use buckets to get rid of the water that is coming into your ship and by the way, you guys are still under attack and you need to fight the enemy pirates of, good luck to you guys.
Sea of Thieves is a game about communication and working as a team, which is a pretty unique game-mechanic that I LOVE.
What piratical things can you do?
Sea of Thieves will be one of the greatest Pirate Simulations ever and You'll be able to do everything that you would imagine a pirate to do. From sailing around with your grog-soaked crew, singing shanties of wenches and booty, to getting scurvy, there’s everything you might want from a pirate’s life.
In the E3 demo, people were given 3 different kinds of the quest to choose from. The first two being quests that require you to read between the lines and solve riddles. The Third one was a rather simple quest, that made people find the red cross on an island.
What makes Sea of Thieves truly interesting is the minimal UI. I'm not a fan of quest markers or anything like that and I try to disable the UI in any kind of game, with not so much success. The thing Sea of Thieves handles the UI is really amazing. You're given an actual Treasure map which can be looked at by your character. The interesting part is when you are on the island you'll need to navigate on the map with your compass and try to find the chest. You'll need to use your brain to find the treasure because the map will give you no apparent clue as to where the treasure is hidden.
When you finally find the Treasure your team needs to defend the one holding the treasure chest from both NPC's and other Players. This means that your team needs to work together to get to get the cool loot of the island.
Combat is really interesting in Sea of Thieves you really depend on other people to work efficiently. One person has to man the cannons while other people get the cannon balls from below the deck to load the gun, after which the person at the cannon can shoot the cannon. This really requires some decent skill in coordination and trust.
If you prefer to swing your saber around that you'll be able to board enemy ships and fight face-to-face with the enemy crew. You can either swim aboard other ships, or, if you're feeling brave, you can literally fire yourself out of a canon to get there quicker.
What if I don’t want to have a crew?
This is a question that arose to me while I was checking out the game and I almost had the fear that I wouldn't be able to play the game. But don't fear solo players are more than welcome in the game. The range of Ships in Sea of Thieves is massive they range from massive ships that require a huge crew to small ships that require only one or two players to operate. Smaller ships are easier to maneuver and are much faster than their massive competitors.
How can I play it?
The good thing about Sea of Thieves is that you can play the game already like right now. The Team wants to improve their game and rely on real players for that, you can apply for as a beta-tester right now.
The game will come out on Xbox One and Windows 10 sometime later this year, and players from both platforms will be able to play freely with one another regardless of whether they're using a mouse and keyboard or a controller to play.