Sea of Thieves: Review
Set Sail in Search of Treasure
Sea of Thieves released in 2018 by Rare and published through Xbox is a one of a kind sandbox experience. In Sea of Thieves set sail as a unique pirate and seek your destiny among the waves. This game has a little something to offer any type of player who decides to check it out.
When first loading into the game the player will notice the unique look of the game, mixing realism with a whimsical cartoonish style that adds a lot of personality to the environment and other players you’ll find throughout the world, with players and non player characters having a somewhat disheveled hardened look to them really gets across the point that they’re pirates. Another thing that sets this game apart from others is the decision by the developers to have very limited HUD and UI while playing the game, there is no crosshair displayed on your screen, no toolbar down at the bottom, only a small health icon is displayed with a small bar in the bottom left corner. The decision not to add enhances the first person perspective making it feel as if you’re really looking through your characters eyes. I think that this works really well in the games favor by adding another layer of realism to the player experience by incorporating an uncertainty to where exactly your bullets or cannon balls will go, this makes it more rewarding when you hit your shots.
The ocean itself is mind-blowing, the beauty Rare was able to capture with their simulated seas. Watching the ocean crash along the shore or witnessing the light bounce off each wave in the water is truly breathtaking, considering that most of the world map consists of this water it’s no wonder why the Rare team spent so much time getting the look right.
In terms of game play you never know what to expect when sitting down for a session of Sea of Thieves. The overall goal of the game is to sail around the sea on voyages in search of treasure, these voyages will lead the player to various different islands and oceans with their own unique challenges to overcome such as severe storms, erupting volcanoes and even a kraken. The sandbox nature of the game with little to no main objective besides collecting this treasure leaves most of the content up to players and the game does a great job of encouraging that player to player interaction.
This player to player interaction is done by a variety of methods that will display your location on the map for all players to see. You are faced with a gamble: do you sell your loot or risk finding more with a chance of a player finding you first? This decision fuels a lot of the player interaction with greedy players often finding themselves being pulled into hour long naval battles where their cannon abilities will be tested. This player to player interaction is also fostered by the in game voice chat, when speaking to your teammates your voice is projected for everyone to hear within earshot allowing other teams to freely communicate with each other and possibly hearing each other’s plans. The mix of these features pulls players together either with friendships or as enemies allowing players to form their own stories and unique experiences with each other and really adding to the fact that you never know what will happen when you sit down to play some Sea of Thieves.
The combat in this game is truly skilled based, with a limited variety of weapons to pick from and the absence of crosshairs often outside the box thinking and forward planning will give you the upper hand in a fight. Every decision you make will affect your combat, what side of the boat is facing the enemy, what weapons you have equipped or even what food you choose to heal yourself with, a slight mistake can cost you hours worth of work so plan accordingly.
As any amazing game this game does have its share of challenges that face it. Sea of Thieves is known as not having the best ability to deal with cheaters. Cheaters are a problem in this game often using external downloads to give them an unfair advantage that can make it quite difficult to counter, they will always have the best wind in their sails or perfectly hit all their shots and in some cases even fly. Cheaters who often get reported usually take a while to get banned and after getting banned can easily make a fresh account and return to the seas within the same day of their ban, this is obviously frustrating to new players trying to learn and enjoy the game but one important thing to remember is that these cheaters never improve at the game, always relying on cheats or cheap tactics they never improve their game sense and understanding of how the game works, they can be easily dealt with by someone who has played the game for a little bit. Another challenge this game faces is lag, often to make selling your treasure worth it you need to collect a large amount of individual chests or items to sell, this slows the game down to a choppy halt in some cases. The lag will make it a lot harder to steal or defend loot from other players who may have a better device then what you are working with, in my 260 hours of gameplay so far in the game this has only been a problem a handful of times when playing on PlayStation but doesn’t make it any less frustrating when it does happen.
Sea of Thieves is an amazing game that truly feels unique in a world filled with sandbox games, from graphics to content Rare did an outstanding job at making this game feel alive. Any player can find something they love in this game and the game will offer you a different experience and adventure every time you play. Sea of Thieves is available on PC, Xbox and PlayStation and is definitely worth your time in checking out.