Sea of Thieves: The Pirate Game I Didn't Want

Since AC: Black Flag, I have searched for the perfect pirate game. Some have popped up in the last few years, there’s Blackwake, Blood and Gold: Caribbean an also Ubisoft have announced Skull and Bones, a game that uses Black Flags pirate ship combat. However none of these really scratch that pirate itch. Blackwake focuses on PvP multiplayer and working as a team to be successful almost like a pirate Chivalry. Blood and Gold: Caribbean is at its core a re-skin for Mount & Blade, but the developers seem to have stopped touching the game anyway. Whilst not much is known about Skull and Bones, it seems to just be ship combat with a focus on PvP. So when Sea of Thieves was announced at E3, I was excited. When it was shown it had interesting ship combat, it had melee and firearms, there was treasure hunts and though it encouraged teamwork it was also accessible as a solo player. I thought this was it, the pirate game I’d been waiting for. 

As it turns out, Sea of Thieves is a game that gives me nothing but mixed emotions. It is really exciting, but at the same time equally flawed. I have played a couple of hours so far in solo and as a duo (with my brother). I do plan on putting a bit more time into it and jumping into a bigger group and seeing if that changes much gameplay wise, but I highly doubt it will have much of an effect. 

The first thing you notice when you start up Sea of Thieves is the lack of character customisation. The game randomly generates a group of pirates that you get to pick from, which is infuriating because the characters look really fucking cool, however because you don’t create them, the character you pick doesn’t really feel like it’s yours. I wish I got to design what MY pirate looked like, especially in a game were the only real progression is to get gold in order to customise your outfit, to me it doesn’t make sense to start from a base that you haven’t created. This leads me onto my next point, progression. 

The progression in Sea of Thieves is barely existent, there are three factions, and you do quests for each to be rewarded with gold and faction rep. As far as I’m aware Faction rep just unlocks more ‘difficult’ quests, whilst gold is used in order to buy new clothes and equipment. The clothes and equipment you can buy seem to have no effect whatsoever on gameplay, no numbers get bigger, no abilities unlock, they are purely cosmetic. 

The fact all the progression is horizontal is no surprise, Rare said it would be numerous times in their press releases since its announcement. As an idea it’s a choice that makes perfect sense, it allows for new comers to jump right in and not have to worry about getting blasted by a Super Mega Canon that fires flaming heat seeking shot. It makes the game a level playing field (assuming you aren’t playing alone). However, in practice the horizontal progression feels massively flawed. 

Maybe it is because my tiny reptile brain is so used to numbers getting bigger, that I need that little endorphin rush to fully enjoy a game. Why is it that I don’t care for buying any of the cosmetics? It’s not that they don’t look good, some of them are really interesting (even though there isn’t many items to buy at launch), is it because they don’t offer me anything new? What I plan on doing is saving up all my gold and wearing nothing but the rags I started in, becoming the secret millionaire of Sea of Thieves. 

But have we become so goal orientated that having a sandbox to play in with friends and have fun simply isn’t enough? Even the quest loop in the game is awful because there’s no real reasons to do quests unless you want different cosmetics, also this isn’t helped by the absolute lack of variety in the quests given from the three different factions (however it’s possible at higher levels quests get different and change but I haven’t seen that reported anywhere yet).

However, even in the face of all these negatives, I’ve had boat loads of fun with Sea of Thieves (I hate myself for that). As said earlier, all my time has been spent either in solo or as a duo with my brother so I am yet to experience the large ship. However the act of sailing in this game is absolutely amazing, the teamwork needed to sail a ship efficiently is so well designed, I often find myself heading towards a storm to test our abilities as sailors. Sailing the boat is so well designed, that it never really feels like you are just waiting to go from A to B, you are constantly moving around the ship, angling the sails, checking the map, acting as lookout, preparing the cannons or god forbid… repairing the hull from damage or relaying buckets of water from your rapidly sinking ship.

Sea of Thieves is a game that relies on emergent gameplay and the unplanned experiences you have -arguably more than any other game I can think of - and in my experience so far it has succeeded, however how long can Sea of Thieves lean on emergent gameplay before everyone has the same stories to tell each other and experiences get repetitive? Nevertheless the time I’ve spent so far sailing the seas and finding treasure have been incredible. 

Adam (my brother) proposed a quest for the merchant’s guild, we were tasked to track and capture two different type of pig and deliver them to an outpost, how hard could that be? As we lifted up the anchor and drifted away from the dock we met at the map to discuss where we were best headed to find these pigs. We agreed on Snake Island, a group of three small grass covered isles that were sure to be home to the pigs we sought. We sailed north, leisurely, we were in no rush and besides it was sunrise so we relaxed and took it in because Sea of Thieves is absolutely breath-taking. *DING DING* “That’s the Island” Adam hollered as he ran to raise the sail in order to slow down our approach. We got within 200m of the isles and I took a cage, jumped into the sea and swam toward the centre landmass as Adam docked the ship.

As I made my way out of the surf and trudged up onto the beach I heard Adam sheepishly mutter “Uh oh…. This is bad”. Without thinking I dropped the cage and headed towards where he was making dock, “You don’t wanna see this” he exclaimed. As I followed the beach around in search of our ship, it’s then I noticed it. A ships bowsprit, our ships bowsprit, poking through the trees. “I told you, you didn’t wanna see it”.

We both jumped aboard and began repairing the ship in an attempt to keep it from sinking. With all the damage patched, I left Adam on bucket duty whilst I tried to manoeuvre back into open waters. After a couple of minutes of messing with sails and raising the anchor, we found ourselves in a decent position to dock. And to our surprise, we heard the sound of pigs. Adam grabbed a cage and headed toward the island with me in pursuit. And as we got up onto the beach we seen it, the spotted pig, our buried treasure. We pounced, within seconds the swine was ours.

I directed Adam to the other cage whilst I took the pig on board and readied the ship. Soon after, my brother jumped aboard with another pig, however, it wasn’t the right type. No problem “Just release it an go find the right pig” I said.

“It won’t let me” said Adam. “I don’t think you can.”

Shit. I knew what this meant. I knew what we had to do. Adam had made far too many mistakes so far, it was up to me to rectify this one. The image of George standing above an oblivious Lennie sprung to mind. I drew my gun and with one squeeze we were back on mission. “You absolute dickhead” my girlfriend shouted, she had been watching me play all along and had enjoyed it up to this point.

 

Almost deflated, I remained on deck as Adam went looking for another pig. When he returned we didn’t even mention what had just took place, we just quietly sailed toward Ancient Spire Outpost to deliver the livestock. As the outpost came into sight after what seemed to be 20 minutes of sailing in silence, I seen what I dreaded. *DING DING, DING DING* “That’s a Galleon!” I shouted “We have no chance! Get out of here!” Adam took a sharp right as I kept my eyes on the Galleon to make sure they weren’t giving chase.

We seemed to be in the clear, the Galleon was docked, and we were far away enough and out of sight of the ship. That’s when Adam suggested I should sneak onto the island, hide on it and then signal when it’s all clear. After positioning the cannon just right, I loaded myself in and soon found myself hurtling through the air. Thankfully I didn’t have much of a swim to make dry land.

I positioned myself in a bush, and looked through my spyglass. After a couple of tense minutes trying not to be spotted I noticed the captain of the Galleon turning the ship, his team angling and lowering the sails. “Thank God” I thought. They were leaving. I notified Adam who had took the ship and hid it at another island (the south side of Devils Ridge) that it was all clear then I used the merman teleport to get back to our ship.

Worried that we may encounter the Galleon I checked all the cannons were loaded, that’s when I noticed the silence. No longer could I hear annoying oinks of our cargo. “Adam, what the fuck have you done?” I yelled as I ran below deck to check the cages. Empty. The cages were empty. “That’s what you get for murdering that pig!” my girlfriend muttered under her breath. Adam swore he hadn’t done anything. Even now we are both unsure what happened, though we think they starved as I recently seen you could feed caged animals with bananas.

With our cages empty, and time running out we decided to rummage through Devils Ridge and pray we would find the pigs we needed. As I breached through a tree line I stumbled upon a barrel of gunpowder, I figured that was some profit at least. “Bring the cages” Adam exclaimed. I made my way to him and as if by an act of God, there they were, the two pigs we needed. Quickly we got them aboard and headed north to our final destination.

We finally arrived and delivered the goods, was it all worth it for 1500 gold coins? I don’t know but I can tell you now it was a lot of fun. To celebrate me an Adam went the pub, got drunk, puked and decided to call it a night. Yes, Sea of Thieves has its problems, but it also has its moments. Almost everyone who has played the game has stories similar to mine and maybe that is what’s more important than making numbers get bigger. In my opinion the game is exactly what was advertised, an open world pirate sandbox where you get to hang out with friends and go on adventures. However I do hope the game is supported with content updates as Sea of Thieves really is a fantastic base with so much potential.

I plan on playing more Sea of Thieves with Adam, and I can’t wait to get my other brother online with us too, then we’ll get to try out the Galleon. The game is worth trying with Game Pass especially if you have a bunch of friends who you can play with, even the dullest of quests become interesting when you are hanging out with the people you know, and I think that’s where Sea of Thieves really shines, being a fantastic space to hang with friends and create your own stories.