At Rare, we got a brief glimpse of the Kraken, the mythical squid beast of nautical legend, originally teased in the very first Sea of Thieves concept trailer.

The Kraken is a legendary gigantic octopus or squid-type creature large enough to devour entire ships whole. Likely inspired by exaggerated tales of the real-life giant squid, the Kraken has been a staple of oceanic myths in movies, games, and books for years and years. Considering Rare is building Sea of Thieves with pirate myths and legends in mind, it would have been criminal to leave out this particular one.

In the tease, we were shown a video from the Kraken's perspective, with its tentacles rising from the depths, encircling a single vessel. The scale of the Kraken we were shown was truly awe-inspiring. Its tentacles were large enough to wrap a ship and lift it out of the water, and grab players as though they were toys. If the implementation even approaches the teaser, I'll be an incredibly happy (and terrified) pirate. Best VPN providers 2020: Learn about ExpressVPN, NordVPN & more To learn more about how the Kraken works, we sat down with Rare Design Director Mike Chapman. Q&A with Rare's Mike Chapman Jez Corden, Windows Central senior Xbox editor: How will the Kraken work? Will it spawn as part of a quest? Will it be there for launch? Mike Chapman, design director on Sea of Thieves: The Kraken will 100 percent be in for launch. It's a random world encounter, deliberately so. The Kraken is a thing of myth and legend, to have it something that's triggerable by players like it's a controllable game mechanic is just the wrong way to approach the Kraken. All these emergent scenarios you get is going to make the Kraken feel so awesome to encounter. The Kraken is this fierce force of nature that can take you by surprise. It's this merciless thing that can strike while you're out there in the world. When we talk about conveying different emotions in players, the Kraken is like on the end of that "awe," "mystery," "terror" scale. When it comes to ship sailing, you're just an extra cog as part of a more complex system. The ship is effectively a piece of wood that requires people to sail it, load the cannons, fire them, etc. When you've got systems like that, and you've got something the sheer scale and complexity of the Kraken, that has eight independent tentacles, its own A.I. brain, its got a set of strategies of things it can target on the ship. The Kraken will play differently each time you fight it.