Sea Of Thieves Is Certainly Swashbuckling But Is It Enough

Microsoft has officially announced that Rare's multiplayer pirate action game Sea of Thieves will feature cross-play between Xbox One and PC. The announcement came during today's Xbox Gamescom livestream, which included some new trailers, a few announcements, and concluded with the launch of Xbox One X pre-orders. But cross-play for Sea of Thieves could be the biggest surprise, with the game's closed technical alpha implementing the feature, effective immediat

And https://Seaofthievespedia.com 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.

Then there’s the workings and actual programming side of the ocean itself, particularly the many ways in which the waves crash and tumble against your ship. The textures and dynamics, the way they sway to and fro, sending a once calm voyage into potentially risky affairs; I’ve plenty to say on this feature alone, so I’ll leave it at that for the time being. In terms of gameplay, wherein (least in the beta build) you can decide to go it alone, team up with another or join a party of four, Sea of Thieves is a hands-on, labor-focused experience, stripping away all hereditary comforts with the interface such as a mini-map or objective indicators alike in favor of more communicative and team-based, working together.


The most important element to call out in terms of our general approach to combat is that Sea of Thieves is a game with guns and swords in it, but it’s not a game all about guns and swords. We want Sea of Thieves to support different motivations and playstyles, but when combat does occur, it should feel right for the pirate experience we’re creating, while fully supporting the kinds of emergent encounters that can occur while out on a voy


"One of the things we’re very aware of is the need for the balancing to be right. After running some recent tests, we found that PC players were 4.5% more efficient at killing skeletons than Xbox players, and this feels close enough that it’s something we’ll continue to monitor. However, PvP between platforms, or more importantly device input, is the big focus point for us as a Design team, and already we’ve been working closely with the Game Experience team to change the way the guns work to be better balanced for cross play. We’ve put in a bunch of telemetry around this, and with the change to guns it’s made them feel tonally so much more fitting, as previously they felt more like laser weapons than ancient plundered-and-pillaged gunpowder-driven blunderbuss


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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.