Rare is known for making fantastic platformers for the Super Nintendo and Nintendo 64, such as Banjo-Kazooie and the Donkey Kong Country series. Rare is also known for being acquired by Microsoft and making games that were niche at best and hated at worst. After so many years of being mostly forgotten, Rare released Sea of Thieves in 2018, a sandbox game about sailing the seas as a pirate.

Sea of Thieves is a first-person pirate game where you and up to three crewmates (these can be friends or strangers) sail around the ocean and explore islands in an attempt to find treasure. During this open-ended adventure, you and your crew need to work together to keep your ship afloat.

The ocean is massive, with over fifty islands to explore. Some islands are really small, but others are so big that they’re easy to get lost in. Your quests are in the form of randomized notes directing you to various islands. These notes include maps marking treasure and riddles that require you to observe your surroundings. Once found, the treasure can be taken to an outpost, where it can be sold to one of several trading companies to obtain gold and increase your reputation (the main form of progression).

To get from island to island, you’ll need a ship, of course. Whenever you join a server, your ship will be waiting for you at a dock. While Sea of Thieves isn’t one of those games that tries to be overly realistic, sailing feels more authentic than in any other game I’ve played. You need to use various devices located on your ship to control it. These include the wheel, which allows for steering; the capstan, which allows for control of the anchor; and the cannons, which are used for naval combat. Since these devices are spread out, trying to control your ship can be very hectic, but feels more realistic than just being able to press a few keys or buttons to control everything.

You and your crew need to cooperate if you want any chance at staying afloat. If you don't cooperate, you'll almost certainly end up sinking your ship. That said, the result can be pretty funny if one of your crewmates made a silly mistake. Sea of Thieves is compatible with both cross-play and cross-save, so PC players can play with their friends on Xbox. If you have fewer than four members in your crew, you can use smaller ships that are easier to control. While Sea of Thieves is still fun with only two crewmates, it’s not well designed for just one, as sailing is much harder without being able to cooperate.

To keep sailing interesting, there are plenty of dangers that can appear out of nowhere. These include weather, such as storms and fog, which make sailing harder; and bosses, such as skeleton-controlled ships and the mythical Kraken, that you need to fight. Encounters like these can create holes in your ship, causing it to take on water. You and your crew need to sail in the right direction, patch the holes in the ship, bail water, and stave off the threat all at once.

The main danger, however, is other crews. Not unlike MMOs, you will occasionally come across other crews. They may just ignore you or even form an alliance with you, but they will usually try to sink your ship and steal your treasure. This might lead to a frantic naval battle where some of your crew mates use cannons to shoot the enemy ship, while other crew mates board it instead. Losing your treasure after having your ship sunk by another crew is very frustrating, but successfully sinking another ship (even if you don’t manage to steal any treasure from it) is oh-so satisfying. There can be up to six crews per server, with each crew being able to have up to four members. Technically, there can be up to twenty-four players per server, but it's rare for all six crews to have four members. Of course, you can use text-based and voice-based chat to communicate to crew mates and members of other crews alike (though you can only communicate to other crews if they’re nearby). If hearing other people scream and swear isn’t your thing, however, you can thankfully turn it off and opt for pre-made messages instead.

When fighting, your main weapons are a cutlass, a flintlock, a blunderbuss, and a sniper rifle (somewhat out of place for a pirate game, but I digress). You can equip two weapons at a time. Cutlasses only have a few basic actions, being swinging, guarding, and a charge attack. The three types of guns simply have five shots before needing to be reloaded on your ship. The combat is by no means complex, but fighting at sea is still really hectic and fun.

Sea of Thieves goes for a slightly cel-shaded art style similar to games like Fortnite. Character models are very simple, while the water is pretty realistic (and looks beautiful). What’s really impressive with the visuals is the use of color and lighting. When certain events occur, the water and sky change to an eerie color in a way that truly frightened me at first. Distant objects, whether they be islands or ships, appear as silhouettes.

The music is immersive, ranging from calm, to ominous, to frantic depending on the situation. Instruments like the cello and concertina cause the soundtrack to sound like it's taken right out of a pirate movie. One really neat feature is that you can use instruments to play various songs (a mix of music in the public domain and newly composed songs) with your crew to pass the time.

There aren't any problems with the controls, as they can all be remapped. I wish I could say the same about Sea of Thieves' stability. My game has crashed numerous times with no clear reason as to why. Similarly, a friend I play with experienced crashes even more frequently when playing on an Xbox One S. There have also been cases where turning in treasure wouldn’t net any gold or reputation, wasting hours of work.

Since Sea of Thieves is a pirate game, you probably know what moral issues to expect. You have to fight skeletons, sharks (sharks sometimes have harpoons sticking out of their heads), and other players. Skeletons burst into bones upon defeat, sharks float on the surface of the water before disappearing, and players turn into ghosts upon death. Along with having to fight un-dead skeletons, there are skeletal corpses located on some of the islands, with some being dismembered. Surprisingly, the only instance of blood is in the form of particles when attacking the kraken with a cutlass.

Obviously, being a pirate means stealing from other players, right? Well, you technically don’t have to steal, but progression can be very difficult without doing so. Some female NPCs show cleavage. Also, there’s a lot of drinking. Not only are some NPCs clearly drunk when talking to you, but you can drink grog whenever you want for the sake of role-play. As you drink, you start to move automatically and even start throwing up. Some areas are named after the devil or have d*mn in the name. There is also a gay pride flag that you can hoist on your ship.

Finally, there are quite a few instances of what can be seen as occult imagery. One of the major trading companies uses magic and purchases skulls from you. You can avoid this company, but much like when it comes to stealing, making progress can be difficult while avoiding it. Certain cannonballs can put curses on their targets. Every time you die, you get sent to a ghost ship for about thirty seconds. There are also ghost ships that you can fight.

Sea of Thieves is a fantastic multiplayer game, one that tests its players’ cooperation skills while providing an immersive pirate experience. Some might not like the overpriced microtransactions, but they only have a cosmetic effect. The moral issues are definitely concerning, but most of them are to be expected from a pirate game. Sea of Thieves still receives content updates to this day.

I would say that Sea of Thieves is worth the forty-dollar price tag, but since it frequently goes on sale, I would recommend waiting for one. I also can’t recommend playing Sea of Thieves by yourself, due to how much harder it is without cooperation. You can also expect play sessions to last a long time before making progress, making it hard for busy people to find time to play. PC users need to keep in mind that even though Sea of Thieves can be purchased on Steam, it is only compatible with Windows 10 and 11.

-Tyler Ferguson