Sea of Thieves (2018)

Learnt today that Sea of Thieves is finally getting a passive mode called 'Safe Seas'. Although, it comes with the caveat that it's only intended as a "temporary" space for new players. Progression is severely nerfed and features have been removed.

For me, this raises a really interesting conversation about games and their direction / vision. In this case, many fans believe that the game was always intended to be a PvP experience. However, passive gamers are a thing, large groups of people just enjoy playing games and experiencing worlds; what does this mean for those players?

I include myself amongst the passive bunch. I love Sea of Thieves world, the boat sailing, the customisation, the fishing, the exploration, making deliveries. In fact, I love pretty much everything but having my hard earned loot snatched away at the last second by people camping the delivery spot...

If games like GTA, which thrive off PvP interactions, can offer a passive mode toggle, then why can't Sea of Thieves?

Personally I think it's time we stop punishing and isolating passive players and allow them to be part of the experience!

Decided to give the game another go, now that they released a season pass. Had a great session today where I did one of the new merchant voyages, which was really fun and involved following clues of a lost merchant vessel and recovering their items. As soon as I was leaving the shipwreck, a Kraken attacked me for the first time. Really cool, although easy, fight.

Ended the session by accidentally exploding my ship, haha.

Are tutorials no longer a thing? Do games just expect that you look at YouTube clips and learn what the heck to do using outside game material? I have very little tolerance for games that don’t quickly show me their gameplay loop. I have precious little gaming time and I don’t much care for trying to figure out a game’s basic operation.

Sea of Thieves seems completely dependent on the multiplayer, if they don’t give you hints for objectives and no one has their mic turned on, how do you figure out what the heck you are supposed to do?

First if all, milage will vary dramatically. I am 20+ hours in and still thoroughly enjoying Sea of Thieves.

Here's what the game has: a lot of very well designed sailing, balanced (though very simple) combat and many cosmetic options (for your Pirate and your ship) to spend coin on. Here's what it lacks: story, progression and any meaningful quests whatsoever.

In my opinion this is an excellent game if you log in with a few friends and "play pirates". Take a voyage or two, find some treasure, maybe a sunken ship and try to steal loot from other pirates. The pvp can be an absolute blast both when fighting and when trying to flee with your loot. Both require genuine skill and benefit from well thought out tactics. Losing your hard earned loot can be frustrating, but escaping with it while someone pursues you is very satisfying (as is successfully stealing it from others).

I can understand why many people are unhappy with the state of this game at launch, but for my friends and I it has been well worth the price of admission. We will definitely be putting many more hours into this game.