Sea of Thieves: Standard Edition – Xbox One

I love this game. Normally I don’t have time to write reviews, but I just want to help address a few things that other people complain about.

Firstly, it is certainly a game that you will either love or hate, rarely anything in between (hence the average rating of 3 stars here — there are about as many 5 stars as their are 1 star reviews). To this, it is probably a matter of determining if you ever had a childhood fancy to be a pirate. Who doesn’t love pirates and adventure on the high seas, and BOOTY?

The main complain people have has to be that some people think it is repetitious and shallow. While it can be grindy and repetitious, the game actually changes as you play in that the challenges get, well, more challenging. As you level up in the guilds, you also go to the next tier of missions which ask increasingly more of you to do, and provide greater rewards. So at first you are catching one or two chickens, taking on a single pirate skeleton crew, or finding a single chest, but at level 25 and above, and after you start to understand the game more, it can get pretty exciting. But really where the meat and potatoes are here is from your experience with others.

The next complain would have to be that your upgrades are all cosmetic, with the exception of a few (like sniper rifle with better scope). While I am not sure what Rare has planned here in their updates, it is true for the most part, but the goal of the game was to keep everyone on a similar keel for competition purposes, rather than leveling up to become the most OP pirate on the server. Also, the objective of the game is to become a famed pirate (the final achievement), that is your goal.

And finally, the other complain would have to be the griefers. I won’t deny that there are griefers, but they have mechanics built into the game now (after the first update or so) where you can avoid them if you really want to. One such example is when you die, while you wait in the afterlife to respawn there is a poster on the wall that allows you to answer if you feel like you are being attacked by griefers. If you say yes, you are sent elsewhere (it seems like to another server). Other than that, once you stick with the game and learn the mechanics and system, you can turn the tables on the griefers and get revenge. Personally that is what I do, I don’t mess with anyone but if they attack me, then ITS ON and I will make them regret it (revenge is sweet in this game).

And that leads to the games biggest strengths…

Personally I love the art style, and the sound is SUPERB, and it has the best water you will see in any game I can ever recall. Also, you can go around talking into your headset like a pirate (just put “arrrgh!!!!” in front of everything you say, and you get to say “booty” in like every other sentence). But all that is really small potatoes to the game’s biggest strength: the story you create at sea from the crazy things that happen and the interactions you have with others (both with friendlies and hostiles). You can certainly play with a crew of friends and that would be fun, but my friends happen to be interested in other games (we rarely find a single game we all play at the same time). So, I mostly play alone, but I have also played plenty open crew sessions with others on Xbox Live and it has been a blast. If you find it isn’t then you only have to leave the game and join to a different crew (that is the key – don’t just settle on the first crew you find, find a good one where everyone is communicating and working together and not acting like D bags!).

So back to the STORIES you create.

What I mean is, the more you play the richer the experience can become to the point that you will actually play into situations that you could never recreate again, ever. You will find yourself saying “I remember the time when…!”. Some examples of stories I will never forget…

-The time when we took a galleon (crew of 4) to a “skull fort” and fought through the waves of skeletons to collect about 10,000 in treasure. Upon leaving, we got into a running battle with two other galleons, only to end up being sunk by the Kraken, and we returned to the area and fought over the treasure that was up for grabs (that was exciting to me).

-The time when I alone on a sloop, passing by a skull fort and was hailed by a crew of another sloop (small ship, crew of 2) and we agreed to work together on the skull fort and split the loot (which we did, without a single underhanded incident, agreeing to divide the loot 1/3 each and we went our separate ways).

-The time when we saw another galleon sunk by a pirate crew, and we picked up the ship-less crew on our passing galleon and we chased down the pirates with a crew of 8 (rather than the normal 4). That was a very strange situation where two crews worked together, sailing the same ship.

-Another time when I was alone, minding my business and attacked by a sloop (crew of 2) and we went on a wild chase/battle where I eventually got away. I later hunted them down and ambushed them (recognizing their sail and hull colors), leading to another long running battle (about 40 minutes long) where we blasted each other, repaired damages, ran each other into rocks, and still neither ship could get the best of each other. Near the end of the battle, I put a gun powder keg on the bow of the ship and rammed them, it exploded and nearly sank us both. Finally we called a truce (by flashing lanterns) a breaking off. In this case even though they attacked me, we parted with respect and they possibly thought twice about ambushing the next ship.

-And finally (because I am tired of typing), the time when, again, minding my own business on a sloop alone (doing merchant missions), I was attacked by a galleon with crew of 4, leading to a running battle. After executing several 180 “anchor turns”, and hitting them with cannon fire, they were eventually led into rocks, crashed, repaired their damage and I got away. I went to a nearby fort and gathered gun power barrels, followed them to an island where they landed to explore and left the ship. I swam over like a ninja with a gun powder barrel, put it inside the ship, and exploded it which sank their ship. Then returned and gathered the floating treasure and got away. This is that “sweet revenge” that is possible, if you are into that competitive play. If you aren’t into that, then you can certainly end up on a server where everyone is friendly (I have seen it many times), or join a galleon crew and drive off any griefers. You can certainly also get away from any pursuit ship too, if you stick with the game long enough to get your sailing skills down.

But let’s face it, what really gets you on the seat of your pants and gets the excitement pumping is when two ships are going at it, and two crews trying to out think the other.

Also, more of closing comment here, I do love the fact that Rare is adding new content to the game for free, with planned updates/upgrades. Yes, you can argue that it should have been there from the start, but I am a game developer myself and the reality is that they have to release the game at some point, and the game has been in development for quite some years. I look at it this way: I learn the game and get deeper into the community experience, it is nice to know that a little something new is being (and will be) added from time to time to keep it fresh.

Give it a try and see if you like it if you are on the fence (as a rental, then buy if you like), but if you love pirates, sailing ships, and are competitive then this is an easy purchase.

Bought for hubby so he can play with his friends. They love it.