Rare – Sea of Thieves’ developers- have managed to tap into the childhood dreams of many people today. Whether you dream of having a parrot or a pet monkey, out in the Sea in search of hidden and lost treasure, sinking and raiding ships, whatever your Pirate dreams, Rare has it covered in the Sea of Thieves.

The gamers play the character of a pirate who goes on various voyages to become the next Jack Sparrow. The developers call the game a shared-world adventure game, the reason being that you get to share the game world with other real-life players. This doesn’t take away the fact that you can enjoy the game as a sole ranger, playing solo as the captain of your ship, or you could join a crew. A crew consists of a maximum, four players who control a ship and cooperate towards achieving the missions. 

The ship you use in each game is determined primarily by the size of your crew. For a two-person crew, you are given the Sloop, the Brigantine would serve a 3- man crew, and the Galleon, being the biggest ship available in the game, is reserved for the four-person crew. While Sea of Thieves is a shared-world online adventure game, it should also be noted that it doesn’t have a consistent world. This means that you can’t be too attached to anything, as everything except progression goals is reset every time you log off. You are a pirate, right, and a pirate is the nomad of the Sea so suck it up. 

Missions and Objectives 

Unfortunately, Sea of thieves is not one of those video games with an encompassing plot that gives the game a sense of direction. Many critics have described it as flat, boring, and repetitive; while I may agree to some extent that the game might need some fleshing up, it still doesn’t pass as boring. You start out going on voyages for different seafaring organizations. The organization you choose to work for would determine the mission you would engage in; for the Gold Hoarders, be prepared to go bounty hunting. For the Order Souls, you have to defeat the army of undead skeleton pirates, and the Merchant Alliance has you ferrying goods from one location to another. The jobs appear pretty simple: accept the task, find the island, perform the task, return to the outpost, and get paid. 

Completing tasks isn’t as easy as it appears; the first bottleneck is in sailing itself. If you are playing solo, then expect to be running up and down the deck trying to stay afloat; but with a larger, you can assign different sailing aspects to different people. Just as you are getting the hang of your ship, you hank out your telescope only to spot a sail in the near distance, and you have to be prepared for a nasty battle with another crew.  

Combat in Sea of Thieves is just as gory as you see play out in the Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Combat involves firing cannonballs at the enemy ship and taking fire, with crew members sneaking into opposing ships, stealing treasures, shooting and stabbing, broken masts and holes in the hull, shouting out orders to crew members, repairing the ship and doing everything possible to stay afloat. Other players are not your only opponents. However, the only PvE enemy the game allows is the skeleton, and although there are varieties of these, having only one type of enemy can dampen enthusiasm over time.

Downsides

The greatest weakness with the Sea of Thieves is its lack of progression. There are no upgrades; you can’t get a better ship, you can’t upgrade your canons, there are no skills or perks to upgrade. The game keeps going in circles; you could spend a million hours playing the game and would have nothing to differentiate you from a newcomer in the game. Although completing missions with the organizations increases your ranking and opens up more lucrative mission options for you, none of these translate to anything substantial. At best, you earn the right to say you are a level 50 pirate – it doesn’t stop a level 2 pirate crew from whooping your ass in combat. 

It gets worse when you think about how incredibly repetitive the game can be. First and foremost, as earlier mentioned, your only AI adversary is the skeletons, as if that is not enough. All the islands are so identical it almost feels like you went through all the trouble of sailing to arrive back at the same island. 

Upgrades and Improvements

Sea of Thieves was designed to be enjoyed with other players. The fun of the game lies in slugging it out with rivalships, shouting, and laughing with teammates as you fight for survival. I have concluded that Sea of thieves is ridden on the wings of being played with friends against being enjoyed mainly for the gameplay.

That is not to say that Rare has not been on its feet in an attempt to make the game more appealing to gamers. A year after release, Rare released an update for the game with three major features: The Tall Tales, the Arena, and the Hunter’s Call. The Tall Tales are a series of quests with background plots all linked together by a bigger plot. The Hunter’s Call brings some wildlife into the game allows players to fish, hunt for food, and cook. Other updates allow players to purchase and own pets, giving the game a deeper feel and making it less scanty.

In conclusion, Sea of Thieves is a game that seats back while the players make it what they please. It rarely interferes with the player’s navigational experience and allows players to communicate effectively to pursue a common goal. There are times when gaming gives way for humanity, such as instances when other crew members would help out a mariner in distress instead of pillaging. The game doesn’t, however, fail to give us amazing graphics and quality picture display. In general, Sea of thieves gives you $60 reasons to put on your pirate hat and go out to Sea.