Sea of Thieves
An ocean of salty gaming tears.
We’ve been running up and down two flights of creaky stairs on this pirate galley for the last 10 minutes. There’s a storm raging overhead and if somebody doesn’t drain the hold, one small bucket at a time, then she’ll sink. We’re anchored at a small island after following vague directions scratched onto a treasure map.
Voice chat crackles: our mate is repeating something about “looking for three skulls facing east” and then “five paces southwest”, while another scans the horizon for sails from the crow’s nest. “Shit, I’ve just been struck by lightning,” he squawks a few seconds later. But we no longer care, as we continue to heave into our dizzying, soul-destroying bucket-work. We don’t know if we’re having fun.
Sea of Thieves is an open-world sharedadventure game from Microsoft Studios. Players — from both PC and Xbox One — assume the role of pirates in an online, flooded world in search of treasure, fame and a new pair of pants. There are three main factions players can run ‘voyages’ for — almost all of which are basic variations of the staple RPG fetchquest, where you’ll be asked to find something in the game world and bring it back. Easy. You’re given a ship — a small sloop for one or two players, or a large galleon for three or more — a compass and a heading, and off you sail. Navigating around the sea is fun, the first few times you do it. Each ship features a map room or captain’s quarters where you can plot a course. Navigating involves raising the anchor, checking wind direction and lowering/ angling the sails to catch it as best you can. The smaller sloops only have the one sail, which is simple to manage for solo or duo teams, while the galleons have three.
When the cartoon-piracy gets dangerous, your ships come furnished with hefty cannons and players are equipped with a cutlass and hand-cannon for getting close and personal. Combat is a simplistic hack-andslash affair, and any real fun is heavily reliant on the unpredictable nature that comes from random encounters with other players.
A simple voyage can take anywhere from 10 mins to more than an hour. Ideally, rewards should reflect that effort, but sadly, they really don’t. Pirating earns you gold, which you can use to buy cosmetic appearances for all your gear. You can’t get better or faster at sailing, nor can you learn to shoot better or reload faster. There’s no meaningful progression. The economy — and the will to continue playing — comes under scrutiny when it takes two or three gaming sessions just to earn some fancier pants. Sea of Thieves would be a better game if time-toreward was tweaked. The chance for gold and cosmetic appearances to drop from in-game enemies would be a start, and give you a more compelling reason to leave the pub you spawn into. Troy Coleman