The closed beta for Sea of Thieves has come and gone and despite server issues on day one , it's safe to say it was quite the success. With interesting co-operative gameplay and fun cartoonish art style, Microsoft and Rare's pirate adventure seems to be winning gamers over. Now, if the rumors are to be believed, those who missed out on the closed beta may soon be getting a chance to captain their own s

But didn't it seem like Microsoft was protesting a little too much about just having too much other stuff to showcase to make time for VR? E3 2017 really brings out the gaming community's optimism, after all, and more than a few people thought Microsoft's strict no VR policy was a red herring for a big announcement to come during E3 week. Sadly, Microsoft was simply telling the truth about its intentions for E3 2017, and there was nary a rumor regarding Microsoft VR by the time the show floor had empt

I’m not suggesting there be some kind of grind or loot-based collectathon (Rare certainly know how to do collectathons, but perhaps they best steer away from that concept for the time being) that hooks players into getting better/faster/stronger/more resilient, but more importantly, coming back for more. Whether it’s the bare simplicity of island design, the lack of any real management structure aboard your ship or just the general transparency of its world’s engagement, Sea of Thieves feels just like one of those temporary respites prior to some grander investment in another game. Something you muck about with for an hour and nothing more. And for something as crucial as it’s been for someone like myself who seldom indulges in online multiplayer, while Sea of Thieves gets the teamwork principle down…then what?

But perhaps it's this deliberate restriction that lends itself to some interesting interactions between players and novel use of player skills as a means at working better together. While the skill at merely turning a map around to show others sounds ridiculously basic, it’s a clever move in context. A means to build bridges between similarly-plucked team-mates and better incentivises Sea of Thieves’ core, principle lesson in working together. Granted the perk is proven moot when, upon agreeing on a particular voyage, you simply get handed the same maps in your inventory, but the physicality of such interactivity in-game is welcome regardless. When it comes to your ship, though, all hands are most certainly on deck. There are sails to align and angle; potential hazards to flag and shout out to the player steering the ship (whom, if the sails are set at full length can’t see where they’re steering, again a nice nudging toward better relationships)…and if worse comes to worse, leaks to repair should you collide. Or even worse, cries of "FRAME-RATE!" -- as I had to do when a teammate is barking compass directions but I have no means to control the stuttering performance -- when the game (on PC) decides to nose-dive from relatively stable 60FPS to, at its worst, the high-teens -- the most notable drops occurring mostly at Sea Of Thieves news|https://seaofthievesfans.com/, relatively afar from shore.

Andreas goes on to describe how visual effects are all about bringing the entire experience together, a key facet of what will make Sea of Thieves more than a typical pirate game. As an online multiplayer game with a heavy reliance on character customization and progression, player investment in the character and world is an obvious priori

New game mechanics are also mentioned in the post. Behavior and combat effects are to be added to the large kraken battles featured in the game. Tweaks are also being done of enemy difficulty, with more difficulty ranks being added to skeleton enem

For someone who was initially miffed about Rare going the way of a massively-multiplayer, online experience — and admittedly heralding a much lower level of excitement as a result — the outcome, after a fair number of days at [virtual] sea in the closed beta, are more upbeat. Albeit, still mixed in a number of ways. Let’s start with the positives and work our way down: Sea of Thieves has a peculiar degree of charm to it. Perhaps not to the same degree of colorful personality of previous titles, but subtly present nonetheless. Anyone who’s followed Rare for a long time will instantly recognize the degree of care and consideration for the details, both grand and minuscule in equal measure. The glare of the sun as you swim your way back to your ship, the ruffle of paper as you scour your chartered map for the desired island to reach; even the way your on-board lanterns flicker and crackle as the waves collide and risk snuffing out the flames.

Whether it ends up happening or not, it doesn't seem like players are going to be forgetting about the game anytime soon. Despite much criticism pointed towards Microsoft's first party games Sea of Thieves has always proven to be a bright spot in the public eye, especially with the game set to feature cross-play between Xbox and PC , a step most gamers would agree is in the right direction. It's now all up to Microsoft and Rare to ensure smooth sail