So everyone has leveled their criticisms against Sea of Thieves which were fair if a bit tedious.
While I couldn’t play much during the opening weeks I have been able to put a lot more time in recently. The game provided me an my son (now 7) with a really wonderful experience. It really filled my son with wonder and discovery unlike few other games we have tried in recent years. He managed to work out how to sail a sloop by himself and even stumbled on a bunch of fun discoveries and serendipities.
We worked together to figure out how to secure a treasure map and how to figure out what island the treasure was on. My son carefully studied the map and navigated his way around the island and was elated when his very first shovel dig “kerchuncked” right into our first treasure chest (what an exciting sound that still gets me each time). Since then we have fought skeletons for the Order of the Souls, been on numerous other treasure hunts, just sailed around without purpose, and even goofed around a little. I have been so taken with the game that I have even continued playing it myself when he goes to bed; which is saying something that it broke my Rainbow Six Siege addiction!
The real star of this game is the sea itself and the pure pleasurable act of simply sailing. The variation of the sea from calm conditions to choppy to storms along with the gorgeous vistas, sunsets, sunrises, cloud formations, horizon draw distance, appearance of other ships, navigation, etc. all combine into perhaps the best nautical game I have ever played. The sound design is just brilliant too: the creaks and groans of the ship, the loud decisive thuds when handling the anchor or sails, the snap of the sail in the wind, the kerchunk of a shovel hitting a chest, and even the occlusion of sound/wind when you load yourself into a cannon. Just sailing the high seas is an immersive joy filled with open mouth gaping, screenshots, and just existing in a carefully realized world of discovery. I almost prefer the quiet immersion of solo-sailing a small sloop.
With my time spent on Sea of Thieves I am starting to believe this design is a branch or fork of the immersive sim genre. Actually this might be one of the possible futures of the immersive sim genre since titles like Prey, Dishonored, Hitman, and Deus Ex are struggling to find the success they once did. I really hope that Sea of Thieves is successful enough that Rare are able to further iterate and develop the game and the idea. I personally can see putting a lot of time in this astounding work.
I am starting to think that my tastes in games are starting to break from the pack in some areas. I consider both No Man’s Sky and Sea of Thieves triumphs that have filled me with wonder and awe while a large section of the hobby had much poorer reactions and had reservations about content and progression systems. Then conversely I find that something like Warframe is a pile of garbage mobile F2P progression systems with an endless series of overlapping treadmills…while to most of the hobby Warframe is now beloved and raised up as a model F2P game.
I think Sea of Thieves is better BECAUSE it lacks the normal progression systems, color rarities, unlockable gameplay advantages, treadmill systems, and other design trends that clutter up most contemporary games. Unfortunately that is just one man’s humble opinion and not the appetite and will of the larger market. Despite that I hope Sea of Thieves finds enough people like me that appreciate what it is trying to do so that Rare can further develop the concept.
Also, the game works perfectly across both my OG Xbox One and Windows 10 PC. Looks great on both, performs well, and syncs with ease.
