Here’s everything you need to know about Rare’s upcoming pirate odyssey.
Update: While the open beta for Sea of Thieves is coming to an end this weekend, the pre-release hype is only just beginning. During the first episode of the new Microsoft show, Inside Xbox, it was announced that there’s a special Sea of Thieves scavenger hunt about to begin in celebration of the game’s release.
Anyone can take part in the hunt and it’ll task players to crack up to 15 clues in order to find where X marks the spot. The winner or winners (because you may want to team up for this one) will receive a bunch of 4 golden bananas valued at £20,000 each.
The quest will begin on Monday, March 19 at 12 am PT / 8am GMT / 7pm AEDT when the first riddle will be revealed. It’ll then run over a total of three days with the release of a total of 15 riddles.
On Wednesday March 21 at 1pm PT / 9pm GMT / 7am AEDT (Thursday, March 22) those taking part will have seven hours to input the answers to the riddles at xbox.com/thebananaquest. After this there’ll be a final riddle to be solved by the top teams from each of the six participating countries (US, UK, Australia, Canada, Germany and France) and the winner will walk away with the prize.
It’s definitely a different kind of pre-launch promotion but it seems to very much capture the spirit and aims of Sea of Thieves itself.
Scroll down to read everything we know about Sea of Thieves’ confirmed features and check out our thoughts on the game’s potential.
Article continues below…
It’s been a while since we’ve seen a game from Microsoft-owned, UK-based studio Rare that wasn’t Kinect-based. From 2009 to now, the studio has been tasked with Kinect Sports Rivals, a remake of ‘90s fighting game Killer Instinct and the Xbox avatars, but now they’re back to their old tricks with new tools, making the fantastic-looking open world MMO, Sea of Thieves.
In true Rare fashion the game features a charming art style that embraces the lighter side of the seven seas. This is not a game world that’s in any sense dark and realistic, you can fire yourself out of canons to get around quickly, and you eat bananas to restore your health.
Read on for everything we know so far about Rare’s pirate odyssey.
Cut to the chase What is it? Rare’s upcoming open-world Pirate odyssey When’s it out? March 20 2018 What can I play it on? Xbox One and PC Sea of Thieves trailers
The latest trailer to be released from Rare studios gives good insight into the kinds of quests we’ll see in Sea of Thieves and what individual player progression will involve in the long term. Much of the player progression system will involve building a reputation at NPC-run Trading Companies.
All of the trading companies will appeal to a different play style and each will offer their own quests for players and their crews to pursue. As your reputation builds with each trading company, the rewards you get from pursuing their quests will become more valuable but the quests themselves will also become more difficult.
If you and your crew are sitting at different reputation levels it will apparently still be possible to play quests together as Mike Chapman has promised “there are no barriers in place preventing players playing together.”
At E3 2017 we were presented with another trailer for the game which shows off what we can expect the game to look like on the upcoming Xbox One X .
The trailer highlighted the game’s signature Rare visuals and showed off a team of four as they sought to retrieve a chest of treasure to bring it back to their ship. The players explore islands where dangers appear in form of the ghosts of previous player who remain able to attack you, and you’ll have to be especially careful while you’re busy digging up your treasure, which takes a believably long amount of time.
You can check out the trailer below.
News and features
You can become a legendary pirate
The end-game for Sea of Thieves at the moment is to become a legendary pirate. By working hard to get through quests and increase your level, you’ll increase your notoriety as a pirate. If you reach the ultimate, you’ll become a legendary pirate with your very own ship, hideout, captaincy and outfit (it’s up to you whether you wear it or not). You’ll also have access to legendary pirate quests which you can choose to pursue on your own or share them with other players.
After you’ve achieved this status, Rare says there will be further progression added to the game and you’ll be able to customize and enhance the ship you captain.
There will be no lootboxes, but there will be optional microtransactions
Rare has confirmed that in Sea of Thieves, there won’t be any lootboxes or pay-to-win purchases. There will, however, still be items that you can purchase in-game. One of the first things you’ll be able to buy, for example, is a pet.
When we asked executive producer Joe Neate about the game’s microtransactions, he told us “everything is optional; it doesn’t affect power or progression, and you’ll know what you’re getting – ie. not loot boxes.”
Instead, his team is aiming to “add more fun and social things that benefit you if you buy [them], but also benefit your crew and lead to everyone having a stronger social experience.”
When we asked for examples of what kind of things we could expect to see in this category, we were told pets is likely to be first on the cards.
“The ability to buy a pet – a monkey or a cat to accompany you. But we want it to benefit everyone and we want it to be a part of the fun social side. So if you’ve got a monkey you’ll be like ‘oh I’ll be able to pick it up and hold it!’ But that also means someone can run off with it. It’ll come back, obviously, but that bit of play between people and messing around is key.”
There will be more quests, items and timed events
The first major Sea of Thieves update will come after around three months, after the team has had the chance to listen to player feedback and react accordingly. After this, updates will range between small and large, with new item additions coming at a more regular pace than, say, large world changes.
During a studio visit to Rare we were told that there are plans to add new guilds on top of the three that are already in the world in order to allow for more diverse quests. There will also be new items and timed events. For example, you might find when you sign in one weekend that there’s an NPC in a tavern for a couple of days with a quest that’s never been available before and perhaps won’t be available again.
It’ll be this mix of big additions and temporary events that will encourage players to continue to log in and explore the Sea of Thieves.
No VR or local co-op planned
Though Sea of Thieves is a first-person game with an unobtrusive UI, there won’t be a VR version. The reason for this, we’ve been told, is that sea sickness is very real, even in a virtual world. There also won’t be any local co-op in the game. Rare told us that the game’s cross-play and low minimum specs means that households with more than one laptop or a combination of laptops and consoles will be more than able to play the game together, without the need to split a screen.
There will be a Kraken
That’s right, a Kraken. Sea of Thieves is a game that embraces the romantic and mythical side of piracy rather than the gritty realism of scurvy and keelhauling.
Naturally, that means a Kraken will appear in the game. It won’t be possible to hunt down the Kraken, and there’s predicting when it’ll appear. Instead, Rare has said that it will be a sporadic and unpredictable force in the world to make things feel more organic and dynamic. It could appear to make wrangling a storm worse, or it could sneak up on your just as you’re finishing a quest and trying to cash in your chests.
You can play solo or with a crew
Though Sea of Thieves is a game that not-so-gently encourages you to play with others, you can play alone on a small single-man ship. While you’re playing solo, you can still come up against ships manned by crews of four and though they can be taken down, it’s not easy. Playing solo requires some playstyle adaption and you might find yourself adopting more sneaky tactics (such as sneaking aboard a ship at night to plant explosive kegs) rather than sailing straight into broadside ship-to-ship combat. It’s also a good opportunity to form a temporary truce with other single players to work together to take down a larger enemy.
