Every now and then there comes along a video game design idea that’s so obvious that you wonder why it hadn’t been thought of sooner. When these ideas come along, they’re of course often brilliant – which is why they feel so like they weren’t so much conceived and developed so much as they simply …
Every now and then there comes along a video game design idea that’s so obvious that you wonder why it hadn’t been thought of sooner. When these ideas come along, they’re of course often brilliant – which is why they feel so like they weren’t so much conceived and developed so much as they simply always were. Watch on YouTube Such is the case for Sea of Thieves: A Pirate’s Life, the new mash-up of Rare’s ever-lasting world of magical piracy and the biggest pirate franchise on the planet, Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean. Announced as part of the Xbox E3 festivities, the free expansion features POTC series lead Captain Jack Sparrow, but also brings with it a wealth of ideas and features that should serve to enrich the life of Sea of Thieves players across the board – from the experienced hook to the landlubber newcomer. To my mind, the best element of this is a simple one: finally, it gives players an instanced little slice of the Sea of Thieves experience where you won’t be under constant threat from dickhead other players. For some players, and for newcomers in particular, this might be big. Traditionally, Sea of Thieves is an always-online experience. While it’s not an MMO, once you exit the tutorial you’ll be placed onto a server with a range of other players – and you can encounter them for good or for ill. The Sea of Thieves community is generally welcoming and lovely, I want to note, and progression is ‘soft’ enough that there’s never the threat of losing significant progress – but the threat of coming across somebody who might decide they fancy ruining your day is huge. This fits with the theme, of course. The pirate’s life is all about thieving and backstabbing. Sometimes it leads to hilarity, too. When I think about some of my best Sea of Thieves moments, one of the top-ranking ones will forever be when some dick snuck aboard our ship when it was moored up, put an explosive barrel on the lower decks, then hid down there and waited for us to all board the ship before blowing us all to kingdom come.
