The Open Sea
It’s been three weeks now of myself playing with the persona of Captain Jim the Pirate who people almost catch, and a fun three weeks it has been. I’ve found treasures, completed endless quests, fought off sharks, been eaten by sharks and so much more. Sea of Thieves has been an interesting and playing alone and with friends has given me multiple different experiences to base this review on. I gave Sea of Thieves a little time to review because I wanted to see how I would last playing in the game for so long, would I become bored and simply start trying to shoot down other ships or would I still find some sort of excitement in what feels like the neverending quest cycle? At the end of it all will Sea of Thieves be the multiplayer game that brings me, someone who doesn’t play many online multiplayer games, to the genre?
In Sea of Thieves, the idea is simple, you’re a pirate. You can be a pirate by yourself, you can be a pirate with another friend or even two friends or even four friends (wow look at you lucky to have four friends guy). Each time you play the game you set sail on the Sea of Thieves a map created by the game’s developer Rare which is filled with various islands, outposts, coves, forts and hidden treasures. You complete quests to raise your stardom with groups by hunting for treasure, finding the skulls of the top pirate skeletons or simply getting people’s orders of animals and spices. There is plenty of quests to do with your friends or on your own but one of the best things is to simply sail.
After three weeks of playing Sea of Thieves what I found myself doing the most is sailing on my own. This was both a great solemn experience as to be honest it relaxed me in my currently stressful life but it was also a little disappointing. The world Rare has created for Sea of Thieves is one of the most beautiful game landscapes I’ve ever seen and I’ve taken many screenshots in the game, despite how annoying that is to do on Xbox One. My gripe, however, is that I would have more fun if I could play with my friends in one big open world. Now you might think to wait you can do that? Well yes, but there is one limitation I experienced from it all.
I recently moved from Australia to the UK, yes everyone has told me “why on Earth would you do that?” but I still have the ability to play with games with my friends and that’s something that I guess I took for granted before I moved. I would wake up and they would be towards the end of their work day and probably already playing, I go on my Xbox and join the group chat and hear that they’re about to take on a cursed fort and they’re on their way there now. One of my friends suggests that I get on my ship and try to go to the fort to see if it’s happening there too. The whole time I’m sailing I can hear them fighting skeletons on the fort through my headphones and then I arrive. It’s deserted. I can hear my friends, who are in a four-man crew, fighting for each other’s lives, and I’m standing in the middle of it looking at what looks like a sweet paradise with no one around.
I’ve played Sea of Thieves for three weeks now and I love the game, I’ll definitely play it as often as I can and I’ll go back to it when there is more content. However, it’s been three weeks and I’ve done a fort once (with friends because you can’t do it alone), my friends have fought the Kraken and I haven’t (despite playing for longer) and I’ve been shot down by an unfair amount of four-man crews bullying my little ship. I would recommend Sea of Thieves to everyone because it’s a fantastic game and despite all my arguing and complaining I want to play more. I just wouldn’t recommend it if you’re the fifth friend (the fifth wheel) or you don’t like spending time by yourself.