Sea of Thieves Reviews

Sea of Thieves is ranked in the 37th percentile of games scored on OpenCritic.
75%
Apr 3, 2018

Sea of Thieves is an unique adventure that's best played with a group of friends. Solo players will run into repetition and boredom sooner or later. The game could use some more variability in content, but you won't care about that while playing in a well-coordinated group.

Review in Slovak | Read full review

8 / 10.0
Apr 2, 2018

Sea of Thieves is a game that is only going to get better. While it may be a little empty now, the mechanics, the world and the experiences you can already have are incredible.

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5 / 10.0
Apr 2, 2018
Sea Of Thieves Launch Review | We All Sail Together video thumbnail
67 / 100
Mar 31, 2018

Sea of Thieves has provided some of my favorite gaming moments this year, but the repetitive voyages and reliance on currently infrequent player encounters to keep things interesting mean the seas are a bit shallower than you might expect in a full-price game.

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7 / 10.0
Mar 31, 2018

Sea of Thieves is excellent on paper, but underwhelming in execution. You can revel in steering your ship and pillaging other players' ships all you want, but the truth will rise eventually — Rare's new game extremely lacks in content and variety. And even great core gameplay mechanics can't remedy that.

Review in Russian | Read full review

6.5 / 10.0
Mar 31, 2018

The graphics performance of Sea of Thieves is amazing, and indeed it's fun to sail with your friends. But dull combat and repeated missions ruined it.

Review in Chinese | Read full review

5 / 10
Mar 31, 2018

While Sea of Thieves is one of the best-looking games this generation, it unfortunately fails to live up to the expectations of most players. Incredibly fun with friends and designed to encourage teamwork successfully, Sea of Thieves just lacks the content or the staying power to be worth it. The foundation here is solid, and I'm sure it'll grow into something remarkable as time goes by, but in its current state, the state it's being offered in, it's hard to recommend.

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Ken McKown
Top Critic
6 / 10.0
Mar 30, 2018

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.

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6 / 10.0
Mar 30, 2018

After 50-ish hours with the wind at my back and the salty spray on my face, I am still enjoying those incredible moments that Sea of Thieves can create – yet I find myself having great difficulty recommending it to others without an incredible list of caveats

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4 / 10.0
Mar 30, 2018

At the end of the day, Rare promised a grand pirate adventure, but missed the mark on so much they could have done.

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Unscored
Mar 30, 2018

Sea of Thieves is a beautiful adventure. It's equal parts satisfying, boisterous, and charming. Pirating is a great deal of fun, especially with friends, but you must be content with its empty progression system to justify its full price.

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Mar 30, 2018

Sea of Thieves is what pirate dreams are made of. It's got some holes that need plugging, and I think time will be it's biggest benefit - there's plenty of hours of entertainment to be had with the existing voyages and things to see and do, but I'm incredibly excited to see how the game evolves from here. Sea of Thieves relies a lot on playing with friends and some repetition to get to legendary status. This is an incredibly social game, both verbal and non-verbal, that you'll undoubtedly have fun playing for hours upon hours singing sea shanties while drinking grog and firing off cannon shots for no good reason.

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6 / 10.0
Mar 30, 2018

I hate to say that this game left me feeling utterly disappointed. It was fun when you experience everything for the first time, but the novelty wears off way too quickly as the game feels very incomplete. It has so many things that should have made it amazing. You can literally see and feel the aspects that make the game work as well as what could have made people wanting more. But sadly, it lacks so much to the point where it feels like Microsoft forced Rare to rush the game right out of the door in the hopes that what it currently has is good enough to make quick sales. All that potential wasted like a beautiful galleon sinking to its watery grave. If in the future there are patches that will give this game more content, then that’s all well and good. But for now? This game can only be described as “What could have been.”

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7 / 10.0
Mar 30, 2018

Try. Embark on a few expeditions, have a drink of rum with your friends, take part in several battles and decide if you want to spend the next months in this world. It's an unusual-unique-new experience, but not for everyone.

Review in Polish | Read full review

7 / 10
Mar 29, 2018

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.

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6 / 10.0
Mar 29, 2018

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.

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3.5 / 5.0
Mar 29, 2018

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.

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4 / 5.0
Mar 29, 2018

What you’ll think of Sea of Thieves seems to depend on what you expected going in. Those that wanted a single player pirate adventure are bound to be disappointed by the relatively simple gameplay loop of going to find chests and returning to port with them, earning money to buy cosmetic rewards. Those looking for a multiplayer game with solo or co-operative play options are much more likely to be happy with what Sea of Thieves has to offer.

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Ben Dye
Top Critic
5 / 10
Mar 29, 2018

About as empty as a lost bottle found at sea.

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7 / 10.0
Mar 28, 2018

Sea of Thieves is a fun game that feels incomplete. It succeeds in delivering a vast and polished pirate sandbox to enjoy with your friends, but its appeal wears thin due to a lack of content. Without an overarching narrative or any kind of player progression beyond earning better quests that offer more gold for skins, there's little reason to come back to Sea of Thieves outside of having fun with a group of friends.

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