What is Sea Of Thieves?

One of the most anticipated games of the first quarter of 2018 was Sea Of Thieves, so anticipated that on the day of release they had a higher than expected amount of people buy and play the game and had to turn people away to stop the servers from crashing. Sea of Thieves is an action-adventure game published by Microsoft and Developed by Rare for Windows 10 and Xbox One. If your not familiar with the game, Sea of Thieves allows you to live your pirate dreams and be a crew on your own pirate ship and sail the seven seas, for booty and glory. And up to four players featuring both co-operative and player versus player combat. The game was first released on March 20th, 2018 and at first did very well, as one of Microsoft top-selling games of 2018 in sales.

In this multi-player, action-adventure, pirate-themed game, players play from a first-person perspective in cartoonish art style world full of adventures, from gold treasure voyages, merchant voyages, and Skull voyages. For you to travel and explore with your pirate buddies, you must work together to control your vessel by steering, hoisting sails and navigating to your destination. You engage in a bit of cannon action, to collect loot, to become a legendary pirate of the seven seas.

GAMES RECEPTION

At first, this game was huge, everyone was enjoying the pirate life of looting booty and drinking grog with friends as well as fighting NPC skeletons and PVP players that are also sailing to get booty and glory. The further you progressed in the game, the more a glooming realization increases as you realize this game that you’ve fallen in love with, this game that cost you £50 (or free with Xbox game pass.), this game that is a top-selling Microsoft game, very much lacks in content. This is a sad realization to come to after you’ve invested your time, money and heart into this game that could be so much more.

The base foundation of the game offers an incredible experience and holds up to the epic pirate experience, that everyone was after. Yet after those first amazing hours of piracy excellence, you begin to feel a lot less like a legendary pirate and more like a pointless Jack Sparrow sailing around to earn coins you can use to change your outfit, weapon or ship. Those changes are cosmetic and change nothing of the games experience and you are left feeling the doom of the pirate grind, Sail, loot, cash in and repeat.

According to review aggregator Metacritic, the game received “mixed or average” reviews from critics. Many noticed that the game was lacking in content, and Rares decision to charge full price for the game was very much knocked.

The game reviews were not terrible, but most of the reviews stated the obvious fact that the game is an amazing experience but overall, the lack of content, leaves the gamer feeling like those empty skeletons you’ve been continuously fighting.

Low And Behold – MORE CONTENT

Arghh, there be more content on the horizon!

After the backlash of players not being happy with the game and its lack of content, low and behold, more content arrives. July 31st will see the second of Sea of Thieves DLC updates, and its a biggen’.

The game has received updates and tweaks throughout the year but the free DLC add-ons might be the answer that everybody wanted to the game’s lack of content. The first of two big DLC add-ons. Cursed Sails released in July, followed by Forsaken Shores in September 2018.

Cursed Sails will bring some well waited for improvements. New additions to the game will include, cursed cannonballs, and AI skeleton controlled ship, a 3 player brigantine ship, and a brand new alliance system, which should make the game all that more fun to play. As well as all these lovely additions, new ship customization and cosmetics will be added for those people who participate in the 3-week campaign event, upon the release of this update. This campaign will include defeating skeleton ships and a side quest system, to deal with the origin of the skeleton ships, which makes for a nice little storyline to focus your pirate skills on.

The addition of the cursed cannonball will apply effects to an enemy players ships and enemy players. For example, there is a cannonball that makes the player drunk, one that locks the wheel, one that causes the ship to ride low in the water (causing un-repaired holes on the mid-deck to let water into the ship), and possibly one that makes your enemies dance, which is a hilarious way to defeat and shame your enemy.

The new 3 player brigantine ship, a key addition to the game and a nice upgrade from the sloop, will have 2 decks, 2 masts and 4 cannons (2 on each side). This will be very helpful for those players that play with 3 people, as a sloop is too small and a galleon to large for 3 players.



Finally, and most interesting of all, is the new alliance system, which lets players form alliances with other crews, but will still be able to harm them. This can be done by two ships raising the ‘alliance offer flag’ while in range of each other. Once an alliance has been made, players can dig up other crews treasure and, share the reward with them, and even proposing voyages for other crews.

Argghhh…Cursed Sails be HERE!

The 31st of July has arrived, bringing with it, the Sea of Thieves Cursed Sails DLC.

After many hours of play time, I would safely say that the Cursed Sails DLC has rekindled my love for Sea of Thieves and I may be as bold to say that Cursed Sails has saved Sea of Thieves.

The new Cursed Sails update has brought a lot to the table for Sea of Thieves, bringing a new edge that the game needed. I took to the seas and went straight in, once the update was complete, I joined my buddies and went looking for adventure.

After reading the note on Galleons Grave Outpost that said “The crew of the dancing demons challenge ye to the final stand of the wilds. Be east of Marauders Arch between 21st and the 30th or the Wilds will be ours forever”, a challenge that no one is going to turn down, Onwards and Upwards, we set sail on the new 3-man Brigantine Ship with my pirate buddies to go whence forth to our adventure.

The new addition of the brigantine ship is a welcomed one, the layout of the ship alone feels more comfortable to move around. The upper deck, holds4 cannons, and sails. The lower deck holding the usual lower deck items such as the map table and armory and a nice little bed. The overall layout of the ship had a better feel. A good sized ship for 3 people to share the tasks that are needed to sail.

The ship feels more agile and swifter, cutting through the waves like a knife through butter.

We head East of Marauders Arch, ready for what awaits us in our brigantine ship. The new skeleton ship appears south-east of our ship out of nowhere. We jump to action, taking fire having our first experience of the Cursed Cannonballs. A dark trail of smoke behind the cannonball that’s incoming, showing that it is a cursed cannonball. Luckily with no hits, we circle and fight back for what seems like forever.

Another skeleton ship appears and we know we’re in trouble. A man on the wheel, a man on the cannon and a man fixing the damage, while being hit with Cursed Cannonballs. These freeze the player in a fixed dancing outbreak while you watch as your ship gets annihilated. The realization that you might need more than a 3 man brigantine to take down two skeleton ships dawns on us.

Overall, I would say that Cursed Sails has increased the replay value of the game massively. For those people that felt like the game’s lack of content was the reason they stopped playing, with all the additions to the game in this update, giving players more to do and more reason to earn coin. With shops having new items and prices lowered, this gives the players more incentive to earn the coin to buy a load of new pirate gear and customize your pirate on your journey to becoming the ultimate legendary pirate! This is only the beginning with Forsaken Shores DLC coming in September 2018 bringing even more content to the game, the Future Sea of Thieves is safely saved and everyone can be the pirate they’ve always wanted to be.

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