Are ya ready, kids? Aye aye, Captain! We all know where this comes from, and we can all remember the excitement and jubilation we felt when this was shouted across the living room of every home in the afternoon. I had the exact same level of excitement about Sea of Thieves; a game that rapidly caught a big ol’ bag of hype. Did it live up to the glory expected of it? Let’s take a look.

Sea of Thieves comes from development company Rare; a UK-based studio that dedicates itself to the Xbox platform. Rare has quite the impressive track-record, responsible for titles such as Donkey Kong Country, Banjo-Kazooie, and GoldenEye 007 on Nintendo 64.


Plunder, ahoy!

Hence, when they announced Sea of Thieves, we knew (or thought we knew) that we were in for a goofy, pirate adventure that we would adore. The art style is blocky, although it is still extremely well detailed, with a cartoonish feel that appeals to anyone.

On the surface, the game is stunningly beautiful. Rare has done an incredible job of capturing colours and contrasts, such as the blood-red tint of the dawn, and the light reflecting off the waves, which is truly remarkable. The open-world is quite large and it can take you some time to reach your destination, adding to the authenticity of the vast, open sea.


Blood has been spilled this night

The mechanics work well and Rare have certainly taken advantage of the Unreal Engine. When it comes to audio, this is not a 'chatty' title, as there are generic phrases you will hear upon sparking a conversation. After that, it is simply selecting text followed by ‘mhmm’, ‘hmm’, and ‘oooh’. Also, there are no shanties aboard your vessel, and there is an almost inaudible background theme that doesn’t offer any engagement. It doesn’t exactly add to the experience and makes it feel empty.

When I forgot to anchor the ship down and sailed onto a beach, the ship would take hull damage and water would pour in. If you don’t act fast, you will sink the boat and watch it travel down to Davie Jones’s locker. If you manage to plug the holes, you will need to get the water out of your ship using your trusty bucket.


Cap'n, there appears to be a leak

The sailing is tricky to get down, especially when sailing by yourself. You must first adjust your sail to alter your speed, then adjust the sail angle to catch the wind as best you can (try doing this while navigating from the table below decks and steering the rudder). To shift rudder direction, you will need to turn the wheel, but you don’t turn immediately, and the faster you are travelling, the longer your turning will take. The smaller boats are considerably nimbler but they are more fragile.

Navigation during your Voyages is not a ‘follow the marker’ style, which is exceptionally refreshing. Instead, you will need to locate your destination on the large map, then navigate using a compass next to your wheel. This is where it pays to have good communication between teammates, as one can make sure the ship is sailing on its proper course.


Thanks to those geography lessons, I can read this here compass

The PC version has a nifty add-on – you can display your FPS and Ping in-game. According to Rare, my system is best set on ‘Rare’ (high) but I managed to squeeze Legendary (very high) at a smooth 60fps. My system stuttered a little at Mythical (Ultra), but I wouldn’t say you need Mythical settings at the cost of performance. The quality was substantially different from low to high, but after that, there are minute differences you wouldn’t pick up in normal gameplay.

I tested out the cross-play between PC and Xbox with a fellow writer here, Lynley James, and it was absolutely seamless. There was no lag or delayed actions, and if I hadn’t known any better, I would never have known he was on a different platform. Communication was also impeccable once we joined a party via the Xbox app, so all-in-all, the cross-play was excellent.


Crow's nest + grog = far fall

As amazing as these features are, Rare have missed the mark with Sea of Thieves. I can’t fault Sea on its narrative aspects since Rare never set out to make this a narrative title. However, Rare stated that they did add some narrative content for those who are goal-driven, but all this encompasses is running supply missions by collecting supplies and delivering them to a location before a date and time. It gets boring extremely quickly and offers zero value to the game, besides giving you coins. While the goal of Sea is to explore and plunder, I found their narrative offering to be unreasonably shallow.

If you have a group of mates who are playing Sea or are willing to team up with random swashbucklers, then you will have a great time. However, all there is to do, essentially, is follow the map to a location, decrypt the clues, then uncover a chest. Oh, you will need to fend off skeletons as you dig as well. That’s all really, to put it bluntly. This repetitive action gets tiresome after a while, and unless Rare can add some new content to Sea of Thieves, many a crew mate may just abandon ship.


I am no expert, but I think that this wrong

In saying this, you can have a wild party on deck after your haul. You can play some instruments to add to the ambience, inhale some grog while you are there, and yes, vomit all over the place. Getting drunk is quite the laugh, as you stumble all around your ship in true Jack Sparrow fashion. Until you fall off the boat while it sails away. Random events do occur as well, such as facing off against the Kraken, and you can chase down fellow brethren if you desire.


Hello, my name is Bruce

In the water, encountering sharks (see Bruce above) was more terrifying than I thought, as they make short work of your health bar. Death puts you on another voyage all together: The Ferry of the Damned. It is a cool reference to the belief that those who die at sea are ferried to the next life. Once you exit the ghost ship, you will be returned to the moment before you died, back safely upon your ship.


I was told there was a stairway?

Overall, Sea of Thieves is great for a couple of hours of fun. If you and a few mateys are looking for a laugh and fun couple of hours, Thieves is a fantastic title. It is a stunning game and the realistic water textures against the animated feel of the game is a wonderful concept. Otherwise, Sea of Thieves felt shallow.

In its current state, Sea of Thieves has no long-term satisfaction, as it gets boring and repetitive incredibly fast. Again, Rare didn’t set out to make a storyline pirate adventure, but their ‘narrative offering’ was definitely an afterthought.

Furthermore, there is nary a progression system, aside from titles, as all changes you make to your character and ship are cosmetic. Simply put, it is a game that brings the pirate experience to life perfectly, but after a couple of hours, you will feel less like Blackbeard, and more like his manager. Rare could’ve done so much more with this opportunity, and hopefully, they will add some new content to spice things up.