Well, 2019 is here at last and it promises to be full of fun and surprises for Sea of Thieves fans… but before we go rushing headlong into the new year like a pirate fired from a cannon, let’s take a moment to appreciate some successes from the end of 2018.

Sea of Thieves was fortunate enough to be mentioned in several retrospective Best of 2018 articles throughout the gaming media. We’re proud of this recognition and think that our fans should be too, as a shared-world game like ours would be empty without your antics! So let’s see what medals from 2018 we can gather up to hang around the Pirate Lord’s neck…

Waypoint: Our Favorite Games of 2018

To round off 2018, each staff member of VICE magazine’s Waypoint section shared their favourite games of the year. Writer and swashbuckler extraordinaire Rob Zacny chose Sea of Thieves, citing among many things the sounds and sensations of the game. Get your thesaurus ready: “The call of the Sea of Thieves is unrelenting and like those skeleton crews of pirates long dead, your fate is a peripatetic existence to rival that of clever Odysseus.” That’s exactly what we were going for!

Eurogamer Readers’ Top 50 Games of 2018

In something of a festive tradition, Eurogamer revealed the top 50 games of the year as chosen by its readers who put it at number 26, fittingly adding “Yarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr” (actual quote). Eurogamer staff also placed Sea of Thieves among their own 30 best games of 2018, while Johnny Chiodini picked it as his personal favourite in this video. The site also chose us for one of their Moments of 2018, citing this moment during the Cursed Sails campaign: “Suddenly, a distant horn rings out across the waves and, after a few moments of strange, uncertain calm, a ragged galleon explodes upward from the murky depths, making its presence known in a roar of rushing water and sea spray.”