Introduction
Sea of Thieves is an upcoming action adventure multiplayer open world title from British game developers Rare. The game is a pirate adventure where players, in a group of five, assume control of a ship under various responsibilities. The game is currently in development using the Unreal Engine 4 and will be published by Microsoft Studios.
Story and Gameplay
Sea of Thieves will see the players take on the role of a pirate and take control of a ship in an open shared world setting. The player will have to navigate through the game’s world in order to find loot and various other bonus items in the form of chests. The chests will be guarded by skeletons and the player holding the chest will not be able to attack and will have to rely on the help of their teammates.
A player can take over one of many possible jobs on the ship. These include, firing canons at other ships, plugging holes in the ship that have been caused by other enemy ships, steer the ship and lifting or lowering the sails on the ship etc.
Sea of Thieves demands a very intricate level of teamwork throughout its duration. A player can only steer the ship if another player climbs to the top of the ship’s crow’s eye and tells them where to go. Players will need to use the canons aboard their ships to make enough holes in the opponent’s ship to make it sink. The player can also literally shoot themselves out of a canon into other ships in order to take out the enemy crew.
Development
The game was initially announced at E3 in 2015 and the gameplay was demoed the next year at the same event. In November of 2016, an insider program was launched to give a small number of players access to the game. The developers have also mentioned that the players will be able to modify the looks and mechanisms of their ships.
In October 2017, the developers announced an update for the alpha that was available to play for those in the insider program. This update included a way for other players to banish a player from their ship, a tool for sending a message to all shipmates, and the addition of new smaller ships that house two players at a time. These ships will be easier to control and more agile than their bigger counterparts. The update will also include a way for players to willingly sink their ship mid fight and then collect it from another location on the map.
Release
Sea of Thieves is slated to release early 2018 for the Xbox One and Windows 10. Additionally the game will be able to make use of Microsoft’s Xbox Play Anywhere program.
The cross buy program allows players who either pre order or digitally purchase the game will be eligible to play it on either an Xbox or a Windows 10 device.
