Sea of Thieves

Sea of Thieves offers a stunning world for players to explore and uncover its secrets. It’s fun, often hilarious, and unique. Though, the lack of meaningful structure and its simplistic gameplay really do hurt the experience. The game needs to offer more than cosmetic stature and acquisition if it wants a lengthy lifespan. Still, this is one of the few exclusives that Microsoft can, and should, be proud of.

There's solid gold to be found here... but so, sadly, is betrayal. Getting the right team is crew-tial. [May 2018, p.74]

Sea of Thieves is a bit bipolar; you have all the freedom in the world to pick where you are going, but there are also restrictions: you can't really make your own character and there is not a lot of variation in the quests.

Sea of Thieves really shines in co-op, but offers too little content for the price.

Despite its quirks, Sea of ​​Thieves is an experience that you can't get in this form anywhere else.

We have nothing but respect for Rare's vision with Sea of Thieves, but it is a game as likely to chew you up and spit you out, as it is to embrace you. If the wind is in your favour then it can be a delight, but a storm is never far off if you lose momentum. The real test of the quality and efficacy of Rare's plan will be in how it manages to evolve and grow in the weeks and months to come. [Issue#199, p.67]

When Sea of Thieves clicks, most likely because you have a full galleon of fellow pirates to work with, it can create a rousing, fun experience whether completing a long voyage for the Gold Hoarders or even just sailing around, looking for any hidden secrets or loot. But remove that and becomes clear that you have a game with little in the way or content or variety. It’s still decent, of course, but it’s nothing to write home about without a group.

Sea of Thieves defies modern gaming conventions in brilliant and refreshing fashion, creating a fairly unique sandbox where you and your crew need to find your own fun. It might be in real need of more variety to the quests and activities, but Sea of Thieves’ curious charms are like a siren’s song that keep drawing me back for more piratical adventures on the high seas.

Much like No Man’s Sky, Sea of Thieves has the foundation for a game that could be incredible. Unfortunately, it’s current state is more akin to something that should be a $20 Early Access title. The game is also most optimally played with friends, as randoms are typically hit or miss. Solo players probably shouldn’t even bother.

Are wonderful visuals, brilliant sailing mechanics, and fun activities like playing music and throwing up on your crewmates after drinking too much grog enough? For a few hours sure, but probably not in the long term. What’s here is extremely polished and wonderful to look at. And if the simple joys of sailing through Sea of Thieves gorgeous world clicks with you as it did me, then however long you spend visiting outposts and islands and strange wrecks – will be time well spent.

As it stands at launch, it’s genuinely good fun with friends, but progressing to Pirate Legend is a long grind. Sea of Thieves needs a lot more briny depth before it’s the amazing voyage we’d hoped for, but so far the great cooperative moments are a good start.

Sea of Thieves has the potential for some great tales, cruising the high seas, following the wind with them sails. Its lack of content and things to do hold it back, but at no point is the game totally whack. Arrr!

A game brimming with potential. Incredible attention to detail and the potential to create your own stories is tempered somewhat by a lack of guided content to keep players motivated.

Sea of Thieves is a game with great potential, but it's undermined by a lack of variety and depth. Meditative alone, fascinating and epic in multiplayer, the navigation experience provided by Rare is truly unique and brilliant. On the other hand, the extreme freedom given to the player cannot be fulfilled because of clumsy boots on the ground mechanics and a quest structure that is far too repetitive.

There are great things about Sea of Thieves, but there are also a lot of half-baked elements in this free-roam action videogame about pirates. Rare's comeback game will have to wait.

Sea of Thieves has glimmers of promise and is gorgeous to look at, but single player play is virtually worthless, and the repetitive nature of the quests and empty world leave the game feeling incomplete and overpriced as of now.

Sea of Thieves offers a very good sandbox that's incredibly empty. Much like No Man's Sky in its days, the game has lots of potential but nothing concrete to keep the gamer playing.

Sea of Thieves is actually the best pirate game available. Unfortunately, although the stunning experience offered by the title, there is a too small amount of content in it. The missions are funny at the beginning, but become boring after a short time. The beautiful environments and the pleasure of cooperation alone can't make the title survive forever. We need more content.

With Sea of Thieves, Rare has created the basis for a truly exciting formula. This pirates sand box is simply charming, funny, visually stunning and so original...Unfortunately, it lacks an essential element, namely a sufficient launch content to captivate us at least a few months. Until the first content update in three months, the progression is currently a bit frustrating and repetitive, and many players will probably abandon ship earlier than expected.

While Sea of Thieves offers some unmissable fun you won't find elsewhere, the game currently struggles to justify its $59.99 price point at launch.

Sea of Thieves is a game that you will not forget. Wonderful to see, amazing to listen to, unique in a group and very particular by themselves, the pirate adventure of Rare is a thunderous experiment built by combining all the typical defects of the genre to turn them into one extraordinary virtue.

Having fun in Sea of Thieves is a slow burn at the moment. Most of the game involves you just chilling on your ship while looking for other pirates to steal from, or for the raids to start. It’s not a game that you can play every single day for hours on end, and most people will certainly tire of it after seeing all of the PvE content available now. Even so, Sea of Thieves is incredible in the way you can interact with players and be whatever kind of pirate you want to be.

Sea of Thieves is like the kiddy-pool at the waterpark. They’re both pirate-themed, they both feature fun activities improved by having friends with you, and they’re both shallow in the interest of keeping things entertaining without being dangerous. The stories Sea of Thieves gifts you and your crew are jubilant and silly, but many elements of the experience left me wanting, even when it delivered on the pirate life.

Sea of Thieves is bursting with potential for storytelling in a watery paradise, but doesn’t have enough to keep players coming back.

Jack of many trades, master of none. Sea of Thieves has a beautiful, wide ocean to explore. It's too bad that it feels about as deep as a puddle.

It starts strong and looks stunning throughout, but the missions soon become redundant, while on this stormy seas you’re not only at the mercy of the elements, but the fun you’ll have depends largely on the behaviour of other players. It can be a tremendous pirate adventure with gripping PvP, but can deteriorate to a frustfest, if the other players on the server just want to create chaos.

The person to skeleton combat is lackluster and dull, the quests are also largely uninteresting, and exploring islands yields little to no actual rewards. I also wish the game did a better job of telling stories that allowed your imagination to run wild when you set foot on an island. On the plus side, it is clear that Rare and Microsoft will be updating and improving upon the base game down the road.

Between the game’s breathtaking visuals, candid humor, and heavy emphasis on cooperative play, the horizon is bright for Rare’s swashbuckling shared-world adventure.

Sea of Thieves has the foundation of an incredible experience. It is a true pirate game that simulates the experience of piracy perfectly. And yet, after those first few jaw-dropping hours, you’re going to start feeling less like Blackbeard and more like Blackbeard’s accountant.

Though it looks stunning and is an impressive achievement in open world multiplayer gaming, a lack of variety and completely frustrating single-player mode keeps Sea of Thieves from staying afloat.

If you have a regular crew to play with and you can get the game at a discount, Sea of Thieves offers some memorable experiences. If you're flying solo or thinking about paying full price, the rough edges should be enough to make you reconsider boarding this particular boat.

It is no wonder Sea of Thieves has drawn comparisons with No Man’s Sky – at its best, when it’s firing on all cylinders and you let yourself sink into its peculiar vision, it is majestic. The glint of the sun on the choppy waters, the friend who always gets lost in the caves, saving a hold full of chickens from drowning, standing on an island after a battle and watching your ship sink beneath the foam. These moments are the treasure. But are they enough? The problem is not only that there’s too little to do; it’s that you want so much more.

As it stands Sea of Thieves feels like a title that gets the ideas in place for an amazing game, yet fails to capitalize on them. There simply isn’t enough content to keep me coming back. I love Rare and I hope this builds into something amazing at some point, but for now this game is hard to recommend sinking a serious amount of time into.

Sea of Thieves is a mixed bag of emotions for me. It’s a great social experience to play with a group of friends and sail on the prettiest water you will ever see in a video game. It’s also bogged down by tedious and repetitive voyages that reward you with meager pay. When you can eventually purchase an item, it will only affect how you look. If that is the case, it seems puzzling that I can’t create a character I want to flaunt to any passerby. There is enjoyment to be found in Sea of Thieves, but not enough to keep you interested in the long term.

In its current state, Sea of Thieves comes off as a boring and meaningless. It’s astonishing how void of content it actually is. Absolutely beautiful to look at but completely underdeveloped as a game. In comparison, Pirates! from 30 years ago was ugly even at the time but brimming with things to do and rich world to explore. As a full-priced title, Sea of Thieves is daylight robbery.

For now, it's a somewhat hollow game that can be fun for a handful of hours when played with friends, and something worth trying out if you happen to be an Xbox Game Pass subscriber. Even though it's hard to wholeheartedly recommend, I like enough of what I see to hold out hope that things will eventually improve as the game continues to be patched and updated with new content.

Sea of Thieves is a multiplayer pirate adventure game, rich with unrealised potential that isn't worth your time in its current state.

Rare's piratical playground looks lovely, but you have to make a bit too much of your own fun. The sound and the fury of the waves is lovely, but for Sea of Thieves to be properly good it needs to give the players more to work with.

A uniquely open-ended online adventure with some of the best co-op of any game, but at the moment there’s not nearly enough content or variety to keep it interesting for long.

Sea of Thieves has a startlingly gorgeous presentation and well-thought-out pirate simulation for you to get excited over. But its spell on the high-seas is short-lived, with a lack of incentivising quests and lacklustre combat forcing you to make your own compelling reasons to stick with it rather than it not loosening its grasp on your attention.

Sea of Thieves’ world isn’t completely lacking in achievement, thanks to its luscious visuals and excellent sailing mechanics, but it feels completely undercooked in terms of actual gameplay. Perhaps ironically, Sea of Thieves feels like the skeleton of a game rather than a fully realized experience. Rare promises that more content is coming, but judging on what the game offers now, it’s a journey not worth taking—at least not yet.

Sea of Thieves is a feast or a famine. When you're playing with friends, it's an enjoyable voyage across a beautiful ocean, finding buried treasure and getting into trouble. When your group isn't up to snuff, you can find yourself lost, bored, and confused. There are highlights to the experience, but I wish it was a more consistent one and there were more opportunities in terms of player customization. After a year or two, I think Sea of Thieves might be a complete winner. Right now, it's uneven.

Just be aware going into this one that after a few outings, you’ve pretty much seen what Rare’s pirate epic has to offer. Sea of Thieves is a “make your own fun” game, but its difficult not to feel like the developers could’ve made a little more fun for you. Sail, stare at the water, and live the life of a corsair — ultimately, its longevity will come down to you and your crew.

Sea of Thieves feels like a game that should be offered for $10–$20 tops as an early access or game preview product. There just isn't enough content or depth here, its core gameplay is grinding repetitive fetch quests and not a whole lot else, the progression here just isn't fulfilling, and fun factor depends on who you're playing with.

Sea of Thieves isn't a complete game. Much of what's present is enchanting, but repetition will claim most before the kraken does. Check it out on Xbox Games Pass for a month, or hold out and hope that it is filled out in time.

I really wanted to love Sea of Thieves, I think it’s a fantastic concept that could truly grow into something special. But as I kept playing it, I was waiting for more to present itself to me. More to do. More to find. Unfortunately, after many long hours with the game, and some server issues (that have since been fixed) I’ve decided that I’ve had enough time with Sea of Thieves. In short, it’s not a game for everybody.