Sea of Thieves Reviews
At the end of the day, Rare promised a grand pirate adventure, but missed the mark on so much they could have done.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
About as empty as a lost bottle found at sea.
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.
Sea of Thieves lays the groundwork for a gameplay experience unlike anything else, which could have lived up to Rare’s legacy, but it fails to fully achieve its ambitions. As it stands, the game is an empty pirate adventure that sports brief moments of delight. Sadly, these instances are fleeting and the player is quickly returned to the monotonous and repetitive quest design to pad out their pirate’s life. Sea of Thieves might one day grow into the game we all hoped for, but for now it is a far cry from its targeted experience.
With time, though, Rare could make Sea of Thieves into one of the system's standout titles that shows what systems like cross-play can do as well as reminding us of Rare's long history.
What's here is extremely polished and wonderful to look at. And if the simple joys of sailing through Sea of Thieves gorgeous world clicks with you as it did me, then however long you spend visiting outposts and islands and strange wrecks – will be time well spent.
Between the game's breathtaking visuals, candid humor, and heavy emphasis on cooperative play, the horizon is bright for Rare's swashbuckling shared-world adventure.
Sea of Thieves is a sailing master class with epic visuals and a thrill ride for the first few hours of discovery, but the swell simmers down to a stark flat body of water consisting of the same thing all over again just in a slightly different place.
Rare have been clear about their goal of wanting players to create their own stories within Sea of Thieves, and it is safe to say they've succeeded. Let's hope they can keep the ship on course.
Sea of Thieves has the potential for some great tales, cruising the high seas, following the wind with them sails. Its lack of content and things to do hold it back, but at no point is the game totally whack. Arrr!
Rare's piratical playground looks lovely, but you have to make a bit too much of your own fun. The sound and the fury of the waves is lovely, but for Sea of Thieves to be properly good it needs to give the players more to work with.
Charming and beautiful but severely lacking in content, Sea of Thieves feels like an early access game that will one day come good. For now it's throwaway fun with your friends and simply not worth full retail price.