From Glitches to Riches: Rare’s Sea of Thieves Journey

Rare’s Sea of Thieves is a first-person action-adventure game and was something new from the studio itself. But at launch, it was panned heavily by critics. The Pixar-esque graphics and ultra-realistic waters didn’t make up for the severe lack of content and bugs in the game. At launch, the game felt like an early access preview but retailed at a hefty $60/£50. Think of this as a No Man’s Sky kinda situation - it is promising but incomplete. I felt like Microsoft might just put a lid on this project as well because they were on a spree of cancelling projects at that time. However, despite the flaws, the game somehow managed to sell relatively well in its launch week so it was saved from being canned by Microsoft.

Everyone was well aware that the game was lacking in many areas, and Rare was determined to change that. The ‘mistakes’ that Rare had to fix were mostly content-related, since they had already nailed the visuals side of things. At launch, the game lacked the ability to direct players on what they were supposed to do; all new pirates were left between huge islands feeling adrift. Whilst some were okay with that, the majority and critics weren’t.

The idea of turning the game into a progressive looter shooter was proposed but Rare chose to follow their initial design directions which were to add a shit ton of content worth farming for. And by doing so, they managed to tackle two very prominent issues in the game. First, by adding so many cosmetics, they managed to keep their player base alive; it gave players the feeling of progression without there being Destiny-like power levels. Secondly, this no ‘power level’ mechanic allowed new players to put up a fight with veterans right off the bat. Since one of the main aspects of the game is PvP, and you have occasional unfriendly encounters with fellow pirates in the sea, this system was deemed perfect for the game.

Rare then confronted the game’s biggest problem, the lack of a story. Starting with The Hungering Deep DLC, story-based content was added to the game which encouraged players to work together to reach the end of the quest and defeat the first-ever Destiny’s raid-like final boss called Megalodon.

That started turning things around, more players were attracted to the game and as a result, Rare kept adding more content updates. There were new types of enemies introduced to the game and vast new islands with new adventures. All of this was also added for free. The aforementioned Megalodon, and other Megalodon-esque bosses were added permanently to the game, roaming freely in the seas for you and your friends to encounter them at any time. And mind you, defeating them isn’t a one-man job - in fact, Sea of Thieves was meant to be played with friends.

This is where Game Pass comes in. Sea of Thieves was added to Xbox Game Pass at launch. The game has managed to pick up a huge chunk of its player base from the service, it was as if they were meant for each other.

The developers then continued to listen closely to what the players wanted and acted accordingly. Content such as PvP arenas, fishing, and the ability to pet animals (trust me, it was highly requested) was added. But they also managed to tackle another problem - the game’s inability to be played single-player.

After introducing Tall Tales - a series of lengthy story-driven quests with a focus on Sea of Thieves’ lore, players could choose to complete these quests alone or with friends. These Tall Tales also guide you through the main elements of the game; sailing, combat, how to use the map, and treasure-hunting. Tall Tales had various checkpoints that allowed players to exit the game, then come back anytime and encouraged friend-less people (like myself) to start playing SoT.

Now that Rare had addressed all of the ‘issues’ in the game, Sea of Thieves started to see even better days. It managed to attract so many new pirates that it officially became Microsoft’s most successful IP of the last generation. Critics started to take notice, and re-reviewed the game, acknowledging and praising the game for successfully ‘reinventing’ itself and getting everything right this time.

Additionally, Sea of Thieves became extremely popular on the streaming service Twitch, and gained almost three million followers. We also saw the game collaborating with other big named franchises like Halo, Gears of War, and Borderlands to bring limited-edition cosmetics. The biggest collaboration was with Disney, in which they introduced Jack Sparrow from the Pirates of the Caribbean series to the Sea of Thieves world. The collaboration was known as A Pirate’s Life and launched back in June 2021, which became the game’s biggest month with over 4.8 million active players.

This reinvention story of Sea of Thieves is starting to become a little common now in the gaming world. Games like No Man’s Sky and Fallout 76 have gotten a second chance and then redeemed themselves. But what Sea of Thieves has managed to do is nothing short of exceptional, where they added so much content post-launch free of cost and gathered such a huge player base. Rare’s most recent milestone revealed that their game now has over 25 million players.

If you somehow haven't already played Sea of Thieves, I highly recommend you to check it out!