Sea Of Thieves

Sea Of Thieves

It's been a year that I can play Sea Of Thieves, because I could have access to alpha. I can say a lot about the game and its overall feeling, but I can not really describe its content overall given that Rare had the wisdom to offer the base of the game, but without giving anything to have an idea what will be done in the long term. Sea Of Thieves did not give me anything that made me say "This game, I'm going to spend non stop weeks", which is basically the way I approach the video game. He rather made me say "This game, in three years I raise it". And this is the moment when I say that Rare has already won his bet with me: Sea Of Thieves, for lack of being a game that will certainly be a hit, is something we have not yet tasted.

The master word ? Multiplayer. The other ? Freedom. The theme ? Piracy. Sea Of Thieves is a multiplayer game with servers with limited maximum numbers, offering (I think) the fantasy of many: being a pirate and acting as such. And on that, Sea Of Thieves goes all out, but kind, really thoroughly. Navigation and ship management, scaffolding, looting, naval battle; the game gives pride to what makes you dream of this time. It is a beautiful promise for the future, at least for those who will cling to the idea of living such events, even if they are rare given the small number of people on a server.

But is it a defect? No. There is the fear of meeting someone. There is this discomfort when you stop on an island and leave your vessel unattended, in constant fear of being scuttled. This is partly the merit of Sea Of Thieves, betting on fun, accessibility, and progression by discovery, it avoids being an umpteenth grind game in which we grind to grind more efficiently, in order to become the master of the grind at the end. Everything in Sea Of Thieves helps build an atmosphere first, then a varied gaming experience, and all of Rare's work ends up being a world in which you want to stay.

That's how I found myself playing more than fifteen hours at Sea Of Thieves as the various alpha or beta test sessions progressed. I caught myself in the game of bringing treasure chests back to the merchants, looking for details about the various islands that make up so many little stories that write the legends of the game. The proposition is different; we are not held prisoner by a system of progression. Hardly can we customize the physique of our character and acquire new weapons, not more effective, but more beautiful according to your tastes. Sea Of Thieves rewards differently, but instead of proposing a vertical progression, he proposes a horizontal one: the good player of Sea Of Thieves will be the one who will have learned the best to manage the navigation, the tracking at sea, the boarding, the scuttling, as well as sword fighting and distance.

Moreover, the clashes on foot are not so much ahead. It must be said that those in hand-to-hand are even particularly rough. Nevertheless, those at a distance, and especially aboard your ships, are much more interesting. Based mainly on the management of limited means, such as bullets or bullets for your gun / rifle, Sea Of Thieves offers short but tense footfights, as well as more technical and tactical clashes on the seas.

But as said before, the emphasis is not on how you will wage war, but on how you will approach the adventure and what it offers. The solo player will probably find what he wants in the exploration of the seas, the discovery of treasure cards in a failed bottle, or in a cave, or even through cave paintings and other narrative treasures that are waiting that you. Sea Of Thieves understands it: all is narration, and the players will know how to renew it with the tools that will be left to them.

Assumed streamer game, Sea Of Thieves makes sense to four; a cooperative experience that gives a whole other dimension to the adventure, where we can insult when one of us, in charge of checking the condition of the hull, has forgotten a hole in it this will lead to the sinking. Or when the other has forgotten to load the guns before the start at sea or even when the next one will have forgotten the chest that chiale in the hold, which will have flooded the latter by whining all the weapons of his ... safe, thus leading the ship to perdition. Or simply when the captain at the helm, too drunk to concentrate, will have planted himself in reefs when his crew will have made it clear to him that there was no wood left to re-hull. All to the sea; in any case, it is enough to ask the mermaid to bring us back the ship, the loss of the five chests in the hold being only a point of detail of the history that we will have lived.

Sea Of Thieves is a game of surprise and astonishment. It is even his only weapon given his bet oriented on the originality of his playful proposal. The renewal is done by the proposed content, where there are hundreds of stories to live, or through what the player will tell by observing the scene, when the few characters populating the universe of the title deign to express themselves . So, yes, it's different, and Rare took a risk. Nevertheless, as biased as I may be towards the studio (I respect him immensely, without having ever really practiced their games diligently), I think that they are approaching the multiplayer game differently, with an orientation malignant, relying on micro-game systems, as well as dynamic stories rather than closed content in which the player will repeat activities seen and reviewed. The bet is therefore on the investment of the community.

It's a dream of roleplay players for those who will approach Sea Of Thieves for what it is: limited theoretically in its content, in fact, rarely a game will have seemed as unlimited and gigantic. Only Rare will need the patience and the courage to infuse the enthusiasm of their title to renew the experience for the months and years to come. Remains a singular game, incredibly beautiful when the sun glows on its raging seas, mysterious when we come to discover a new island without thinking that it will bring us useful, but rather what it will bring us stories narrated in the decor. The hope of a different game's success is allowed when you see that a game like this made so much noise in its relatively open beta a month ago.

It's now a month before Sea Of Thieves gets up and offers everything Rare has been hiding for three years. If it appears to us even more as a promise than a palpable game, the title of Rare remains captivating, nine, offering an experience more focused on exploration and wonder than action. The latter is also not left out when we see how Microsoft's project can be nervous in its moments of war rage on seas unleashed by a storm. We pray that Rare will be able to support his game in the good sense of the word, and that he will soon find a solid community to live in a market where, in the end, he has little competition given the singularity of what he proposes. Good luck Sea Of Thieves. A in less than a month for the verdict on the final copy, if the expression still makes sense for a game of this type.