Sea of Thieves - Reloaded
Although the concept was in fact brilliant, Sea of Thieves was the victim of bitter controversy upon release due to an evident lack of content and an intrinsic repetitiveness on which the entire play infrastructure of the game. Obvious responsibility of the upper floors of the Xbox division, eager to bring an original IP to the market to enrich an offer of first-party titles that is not exactly exceptional. Now, after three years spent in waves, cannon salvos and battles with skeletons and sea monsters of all kinds, we can safely see how much the developers needed more time to be able to unleash their creativity and give the game a debut at the height.
Sea of Thieves, in its debut, offered fresh gameplay but sadly lacking in content. Those who are reading these lines and have only recently approached the game, will struggle to believe what the initial state of the build was available on day one. In March 2018, the only activity to be carried out was the farming of the reputation of the three guilds of Sea of Thieves, which allowed you to unlock some simple cosmetics for the pirate's equipment and which, however, did not provide in any way to obtain customizations for your ship.
Even once we reached level 50 of each faction and obtained the rank of Legendary Pirate, the Sea of Thieves endgame proved to be absolutely inadequate to preserve a large turnout on the game's servers, forcing us to always carry out missions the same and unbearably long-winded just to receive a few more cosmetics. The factor that managed to hold the gameplay together was that it was an exclusively multiplayer title. Thanks to friends, looking for trouble with other ships or dancing and playing together on their own boat, it was possible to turn a blind eye to the shortcomings and continue sailing with relative lightheartedness, bringing their reputations to the maximum.
Raids supported this fragile structure. A huge cloud shaped like a skull suddenly stood out in the skies of the Sea of Thieves, indicating that those fortresses scattered throughout the archipelago and until now deserted had finally come to life. To animate these fortified islands there were, and still are, legions of ruthless skeletons to be eliminated until you reach the step of the final boss, who once defeated gives a key to be able to open the underground room and claim our well-deserved loot. With this new activity not only in a short time it was possible to level the various factions and collect enough gold, but all this gave rise to epic battles with the other players on the server, finally animating every game in which you took part. br>
Watch on YouTube. All the players who have sailed the seas of Sea of Thieves in its first months certainly have hilarious stories to tell about how the sparse have enlivened the evenings in company, with inelegant assaults on players already struggling with raids even just to disturb them or at the interminable escapes once the key is received, trying to outsmart the opponents, almost always French users to be sneered at badly by citing frogs and Zidane's warheads. The explosive barrels were the icing on the cake. Thanks to these objects it was possible not only to easily eliminate waves of enemies in a short time, but to spread terror on the galleons of other players. Launching with a triggered barrel under the enemy hull has become the best way to end naval battles.
But obviously, the introduction of this activity, although more than welcome by the community, was not enough to sustain Rare's game in the long run. On May 29, 2018, the first free add-on content, Hungering Deep, arrived with patch 1.1.0, ready to lift the morale of the pirates now exhausted by the calm of the previous months. Although small in terms of duration, this expansion has brought significant changes within Sea of Thieves, starting a steady release of news from month to month until today.
Hungering Deep has introduced a sort of small campaign, hitherto absent in narrative terms in Sea of Thieves and has added two very important tools, such as the megaphone and the drum, essential elements for the great mission of the Megalodon . With the help of another crew, playing a melody that only old Merrick knows, at the edge of the map it has become possible to recall the terrible creature to be defeated with cannon fire. In addition, this content introduced us to a new faction, the Bilge Rats led by Duke, fundamental for subsequent expansions.
The first content was Hungering Deep which led us to face the fearsome Megalodon. And it is precisely with the Skeleton Thrones update, released in June 2018, that it was possible to embark on the adventures of the new company, talking with Duke present inside the taverns in each outpost. In this Content Update, ten thrones of bones have appeared, scattered throughout the game area, where you can sit alone or with a member of another crew, to be able to earn the new in-game currency, doubloons. of Bilge Mice. With this coin it was possible, and in part still is, to purchase exclusive cosmetic items and gain access to unique limited-time missions. More recently, the black market has also been introduced, which allows you to recover all the content of the seasons that you may have lost over time.
Soon after, the Gunpowder Skeletons update arrived on Sea of Thieves, certainly the least incisive among those mentioned so far but no less important in the path of rebirth of the title. Starting from this update, in fact, the skeletons have been able to count on a whole new arsenal with which to give us a hard time. Now they can also appear casually armed with an explosive barrel, ready to detonate themselves by running towards us in perfect Serious Sam style. Eliminating this new threat ensured that more doubloons were won three years ago to spend at Bilge Rats. After the small update Sunken Curse and its Cursed Sirens, in August and September 2018 there was instead a limited-time event called Cursed Sails and the fourth adventure Cursed Crews, which added an important and fundamental game dynamic that even today it can decree victory over our opponents: cursed cannonballs.
To conclude the examination of the most important and essential updates of the first year, it is mandatory to mention the Forsaken Shores update. With patch 1.3.0. A further large area called Devil's Roar has been added to the game map, which is a setting made up of islands with a frenetic volcanic activity. Thanks to it, elements such as treasures, skulls and chests unique to this region, give life to the ashy rewards, more difficult to obtain and therefore with the highest value. The new biome was an excellent novelty that aroused the curiosity of pirates who had been dormant for some time, restoring vitality to a game world that is now flat and with little prospect of development.
Rare has managed to include more and more activities, so much so that it has added two other Commercial Companies, such as that of the Reaper. In 2019, exactly one year after the official release, we witnessed the largest and most consistent update of Sea Of Thieves, designed to revolutionize much of the game mechanics and the quality of life within it. The Anniversary Update together with the 2.0 patch introduced the Arena, a game mode selectable from the main menu entirely dedicated to PvP, finally offering an option to those players who wanted to compete to become the most prestigious Sea Wolves, challenging other crews in direct confrontations. A new company that can be leveled has also been introduced, the Call of the Hunter, which plans to deliver fish caught by us or pieces of sea monsters to gain more experience, all accompanied by a new mini-campaign to be undertaken to discover the secrets of this. world.
But the prominent peculiarity of the Anniversary Update concerned the radical change made to the damage of boats. Now the galleons can be damaged even in their most crucial parts, such as the rudder, the winch and the masts. To complete this juicy update there was the addition of the harpoon, which has become the best friend to be able to make perfect moorings at the port. From now on Sea of Thieves has seen constant ups and downs, with updates to the adventures entrusted to us by the Bilge Rats but with few really tangible news like the expansions released during the first year of life.
We have witnessed introduction of a new and more complex raid, the Fort of the Damned, which requires particular mechanics to be activated but above all many cannonballs for the grueling final boss. The Absurd Stories have also been added, 11 short mini-campaigns that narrate the adventures of famous pirates and their tragic or heroic death, which retracing them will give us exclusive aesthetic rewards.
Ships of Fortune is certainly the most significant update of recent times, which has given us the opportunity to represent our favorite faction. To wait for other full-bodied updates, we had to wait until mid-2020: the Ships of Fortune update and the landing on Steam. The Ships of Fortune update saw the emissaries arrive, or the possibility of affiliating with one of the companies present by representing them on trips with exclusive aesthetics and increased rewards. To widen the variety, a new faction is also added, the Reaper, the most treacherous and reckless representation of pirates dedicated to looting. Is not sufficient? Well, cats will accompany you on your adrenaline-pumping missions!
Microsoft's decision to bring the game to Steam was certainly courageous: by sacrificing the status and the "exclusive" wording, Sea of Thieves has seen its popularity grow exponentially, registering record numbers for active users simultaneously, up to the stratospheric figure of fifteen million players reached. But Rare and Xbox do not forget their origins, and have continued to focus on Sea of Thieves constantly, first inserting it into the Game Pass library until releasing an update that allows you to play on Series X thanks to a special performance mode that brings the game to reach 120 frames per second.
So we come to these days that have seen a further revolution in the game arrive, namely the arrival of a free Season Pass lasting three months with unique rewards and the paid version, the Plunder Pass . The introduction of seasonal content with free rewards was actually the step that was missing along the tiring journey undertaken by Rare to restore vitality to a title that constantly needs novelty to remain attractive.
Sea of Thieves is now teeming with activities, from naval raids to campaign missions contained in the Absurd Stories, up to a sector completely dedicated to PvP. Most Read Now
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The parable of Sea of Thieves is easily comparable to that of titles that initially disregarded the expectations of the players or that immediately showed a lack of activities within it, perhaps victims of a release too early. No Man's Sky is the perfect witness, probably the most appropriate name to be able to understand what "evolution of a video game" means. Rare's game experienced a similar gestation in after-sales, albeit without the fierce controversies that had accompanied NMS, and today we can finally consider it a finished product worthy of attention for those who love pirate settings.
It must therefore be given. to Rare for having worked well, albeit with a certain slowness, to improve a game released too soon but with a decidedly fun concept. If you had rightly left it on the shelves at the time of its release, we recommend that you give it a chance and try to sail the digital seas of Sea of Thieves, especially if you have a group of friends with whom you want to face something different in company. The price of the title is now more contained and stands at € 39.99 on Steam. If you are not ready to meet this expense, know that the game is also available on Game Pass in both console and PC versions. In this case, you can count on the Xbox Play Anywhere function, so you can play both on Xbox and on Windows 10 PCs, switching between platforms without losing progress. Being a crossplatform title you can also decide from the game menu how to set up your lobby, preferring players with mouse and keyboard or users who use a pad.
Tackling this game alone is highly discouraged and could create a lot of problems for you given the activity of well-trained crews you might encounter during your first raids. Even this last obstacle can still be overcome, joining the many communities born on social networks such as Discord and Facebook, Italian and international, where you can meet thousands of users ready to set sail for virtual Caribbean far better than they were at the time of launch. br>
