In Love With the Sounds of Sea of Thieves

There’s a lot of things you can complain about in the Sea of Thieves. It’s a massive mish-mash of different sorts of adventures and quests, while also being somewhat unstable at various times, and has a really weird playerbase. But there is one thing in particular that Sea of Thieves really excels at: its sounds.

That seems like a particularly odd thing to pick out. After all, the Sea of Thieves also has amazing water effects and its art style is very unique. Even if their newer clothing options look more like Fortnite skins rather than clothes for pirates. It’s also hard to not ignore how the ships all feel to steer and sail in. But I feel like the sounds and music of Sea of Thieves are the most underrated part of the game.

Really, Rare went all out with the sounds and music of the Sea of Thieves. The waves, the wind, the weather and the creaks and groans of our ships, they all work together to build a brilliant soundscape, one befitting of the open seas. The storms in particular are great, and have a nice ASMR feeling to them. It’s genuinely rather relaxing hearing a storm. Even if sailing in a storm is really hard.

What I like most is how everything has a unique sound cue. There are two sounds, one for landing a shot and one for killing a player that both sound great. Turning the wheel back into its central position has a nice thunk sound. And when you have your sails perfectly lined up with the wind, you get this lovely woosh sound. That woosh is one of the best sounds to me, in my opinion. The flicker of the sails and the gust of wind blowing into them.

Of course, not all sounds are great. The sound effects from ranking up with emissaries aren’t all equal, and the sound of the Reapers ranking up is great, although it might be a little too full of itself.

The game’s music is also excellent. I’ve enjoyed pretty much all the songs I’ve heard, as well as the songs you can play via our instruments. In fact, there’s only one track that I dislike. The old loading screen music from season 6 of Sea of Thieves is the one I like the most, but that’s mainly because it’s a rather basic piece of music, one that doesn’t loop well on a long loading screen. Season 7’s loading screen music is much better.

Another thing that works pretty well are the instruments you play. It’s pretty neat how you can get a group and all start playing your instruments, and the game will fit all the pieces together so it sounds like you are all playing the same song. Funnily enough, I’ve actually been part of an eight-player group, all playing the same song. It was required to get the Glitterbeard… er, beard. It’s much appreciated that everyone can play the same song automatically, because otherwise it would be a horrible assault on our ears.

Either way, the sounds of the Sea of Thieves are great. Both tense and thrilling while in combat and relaxing when you’re out of combat. It all works so well together…