Sea of Thieves: Fun, But for How Long?

Ever since RARE launched the Sea of Thieves Alpha a number of months ago, I have been jumping into the game and trying it out during each alpha session. It has been really fun watching the game evolve in front of my eyes, and concepts, themes, and execution of the pirate idea is very well done. With the official Beta launch – and more people sailing the seven seas – it was time to begin judging Sea of Thieves in a more critical light. How does this hold up? How much fun is it really? What is there to do without leveling and upgrading? The beta has handled a few of these questions, but unfortunately, not all of them. I’ve had a blast with Sea of Thieves so far, but will this enjoyment last long term? Let’s dive in.

First things first: on Xbox One X, Sea of Thieves looks PHENOMENAL! The cartoony art style works really well, but that doesn’t mean Rare hasn’t gone to great lengths to make sure that water physics are realistic, and waves look real; storms as well, are very accurate and real looking. Sea of Thieves is beautiful, and it doesn’t matter whether you are on the open ocean or exploring a group of islands. This is an incredibly immersive experience, and I feel like a pirate while I play. Hats off to Rare just for doing that.

But what about the game play? In the beta, players are limited of accepting a handful of quests from the gold guild, which means the developers have left the other two guilds for those who play the full experience. As you deliver chests to these guilds, you will earn reputation which will open up grander quests that will take significantly more time to complete. The beta only gives you short excursion options, which so far, has been fine.

I’ve sailed the seas on two occasions during this beta, once with a crew of 4 and once with a crew of 2. In both situations, I was playing with my brothers, all on microphones, and frankly, all having a blast. With a microphones, manning a ship becomes a pretty easy experience. One pirate was handling the wheel, two watching the sales, and the last checking the ship for damage, bailing out water, climbing to the crows nest, and other odds and ends around the ship. If you work together, pulling up treasure chests and completing quests can be done rather quickly.

It’s the times when you steer away from the regular game play that things get interesting in Sea of Thieves. At once point, we found ourselves in a terrible storm, with no ability to keep control of our ship. So what was our plan? To drop the anchor and hang out drinking grog and playing music. It wasn’t long before one of us was very drunk from the grog, stumbled up on deck, and fell into the ocean, only to be quickly eaten by sharks. It was a humorous experience, and we all had a good laugh about it. But whether that type of fun will last long term isn’t something I can answer now, at least not until I get the gull game in for review.

In the short beta – understandably, the company isn’t going to give us everything – there is enough to do for a few hours of fun. It won’t be until e get our hands on the full experience, that I can comment on the long term appeal!