My First Day in Sea of Thieves

Sea of Thieves has been on my radar for ages, not just because Retvik’s written multiple articles about the memorable adventures she’s experienced as a member of SPUFer Bacxaber’s crew. I’d also heard great things from multiple sources from very diverse gaming interests, and at least 2-3 different people on my friends list are in-game at any given point across the last 5+ years, which is usually a very good sign regarding the quality of a title. But still, I dragged my feet on wading in myself, and I’m not quite sure why. It might have been how many people favorably compared it to ARK Survival Evolved, a game I greatly enjoyed but was then thoroughly burnt by ATLAS, the last time a game claimed to be “ARK but with pirates.”

However, I couldn’t ignore the recent Steam Spring Sale slashing it down to a mere twenty bucks, and finally donned my cutlass and flintlock to brave the unfriendly seas with veteran marauder Retvik at the helm to keep my noob ass alive.

Upon logging in, the game decided my name was CutHook25434, which I originally thought was randomly assigned but turned out to come from a long-forgotten Xbox Live account and just coincidentally be perfectly pirate-themed. The game doesn’t have typical character creation, instead you choose from a roster of procedurally-generated pirates and are locked to that appearance for the rest of your seafaring days (unless you later choose to buy a reroll with premium currency). It’s a bit of an odd limitation, but you can reload the carousel of corsairs as many times as you want before finding someone you gel with, plus hairstyles/colors and tattoos can be changed from the in-game Vanity Chest at any time.

The first thing I have to say is that the game is beautiful, really getting the most out of its lighting and shaders to bring its cartoony mid-poly artstyle to life. Whether you’re lugging spoils through a bustling outpost, surviving a storm in choppy seas, or shooting at inbound phantoms while raiding a ghostly fortress, every facet of the presentation is immersive and fulfilling the premise’s potential.

The first quest we underwent was to sail our two-person sloop to a tiny skeleton-ridden island and relieve their captain of his gilded skull, giving me my first taste of Sea of Thieves’ combat. I found it immersive and refreshingly punchy, a bit on the simplistic side but executed with such flair that you never get bored. The ammo system (no reserve ammo, but frequent enemy refill drops) strikes a nice balance between encouraging aggressive play but still punishing wasteful or inaccurate fire. The health system was basic (you can carry five fruits which essentially behave like healthpacks) but therefore easy to intuit and another way the game rewards those who seek out high-quality resources like pineapples before taking on the tougher fights. All in all, every part of the combat design builds a pulpy and fun-focused experience that doesn’t sacrifice difficulty but still lets the player focus on the swashbuckling instead of fiddly mechanics or inventory micromanagement.

The various weapons in your armory fill valuable and different combat roles. I was constantly motivated to shuffle my equipped weapons to properly counter the needs of the coming mission, which is a gold standard for loadouts in this sort of game. Furthermore, I appreciated how everybody has the same eight weapons from account creation, eschewing level-up trees or microtransactions in favor of giving everyone an equal playing field separated only by skill and experience. All in all, Sea of Thieves strikes that difficult balance between having a low skill floor but high skill ceiling, I can tell I’ve only scratched the surface but I was still able to hold my own beside Retvik and never felt useless or a drag on the party.

The ship operation was far less intuitive for me, but still very well done and never felt cheap or unfairly opaque. The helmsman mechanics are done via a ship’s wheel and raisable/lowerable sails, vehicle damage comes in the form of holes that require bucketing water and repairing with planks, and the cannons require constant loading, aiming, and compensating for difficult arcs (plus I could have sworn my cannon kept unloading itself while I was trying to hit a circling megalodon), but this whole nautical system is also much more unique than the gunplay, and I can tell that seasoned players eventually find it a deep and nuanced process that highly rewards skillful teamwork and outthinking enemy ships. I do somewhat worry about the learning curve for any newbie crews who don’t have a seasoned guide handling the hard parts, but at the same time my own recurring deficiencies only made me excited to leap back in and improve my techniques in future sessions.

And finally, it’s crazy just how many tiny things the devs have added to meet any possible player expectation! I was blown away the first time getting fired out of a cannon, or using a harpoon to drag loot straight from the beach onto the deck. It’s one of those games that lives up to its potential and then exceeds it in a hundred little ways. And this is all knowing I’ve only scratched the surface of what the game has to offer, honestly my primary wish is just that I’d started playing sooner. In case it’s not yet clear, I highly recommend this game. If you’re like me and somehow haven’t already given it a try, you really should consider taking the plunge!