{"id":10776,"date":"2024-04-30T01:35:47","date_gmt":"2024-04-30T01:35:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/topat10.com\/?p=10776"},"modified":"2024-04-30T01:35:47","modified_gmt":"2024-04-30T01:35:47","slug":"sea-of-thieves-retrospective-life-at-sea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/topat10.com\/?p=10776","title":{"rendered":"Sea of Thieves Retrospective – Life At Sea"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Introduction<\/p>\n

When it launched in 2018, many players embraced the pirate life fantasy Sea of Thieves developer Rare had delivered, but many others were not sure what to do with the game. Sea of Thieves\u2019 critical reception was tepid. At the time, imprudent and foolish reviewers<\/a> wrote things like, \u201cThe core mechanics of an innovative co-op journey can be found here, but the carrot being held out in front of your ship is unfortunately small and unappetizing,\u201d and, \u201cMany elements of the experience left me wanting, even when it delivered on the pirate life.\u201d Since then, however, Rare and its Sea of Thieves team have pushed the game into a phenomenon with players of all ages taking to the seas to tell pirate stories together. \u201cIt\u2019s interesting to think that Sea of Thieves is the most popular \u2013 by any metric \u2013 game that Rare has ever released,\u201d creative director Mike Chapman says. It is especially impressive to consider when you look at Rare\u2019s history with games like Banjo-Kazooie and Goldeneye for Nintendo 64 and the Super Nintendo Donkey Kong Country games.<\/p>\n

When I wrote those lines in my review five years ago, Sea of Thieves had not yet found its footing. There was work to be done, and like a crew of pirates motivated to discover treasure and make a better life for themselves, Chapman and the team worked hard to add to Sea of Thieves and bring it closer to the experience it had imagined from the beginning and what players wanted it to be. After finding and continuing success on Xbox platforms and PC, Microsoft made the surprise announcement that it was bringing the game to PlayStation 5 \u2013 Xbox\u2019s primary competition \u2013 for the next big step of its journey.<\/p>\n

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From The Beginning<\/p>\n

From The Beginning<\/h2>\n

\u201cThe kind of conception of [Sea of Thieves] began with, I think \u2013 like in most of Rare\u2019s history \u2013 looking at genres where Rare can make its mark,\u201d Chapman says. Rare looked at games like DayZ and Rust, popular online sandbox games at the time where stakes were high for survival, and much of the fun was born of how players cooperated or competed against one another in those worlds. \u201cBefore it was ever pirates, the core vision of the game was players creating stories together,\u201d Chapman says. Rare wanted to make a game where players could explore a fun world with versatile tools and boast high-quality production values on console, but were also conscious that the games that were skilled at allowing players to tell their own stories were often overly punishing. \u201cIt felt like a space where Rare could really have an impact.\u201d<\/p>\n

From there, the discussion turned to thematic wrapping. Chapman says the team discussed ideas like whether the game could be about deep-sea exploration and even vampires. Internally, pirates were a favorite, which makes sense looking at Rare\u2019s history. It had never made a pirate-focused game before, but pirates did have a way of always sneaking their way in. \u201cIf it was pirates, it could be crews of real players sharing a ship. And then every other ship in that shared social sandbox will become another crew of real players,\u201d Chapman says.<\/p>\n

At that point, the prototype stage began and Rare started exploring details like, should the game be first-person? If you\u2019re a pirate on your own, how do you control a whole ship? \u201cWe built the game outwards from there, starting with the absolute core, building a lot of the mechanics that you see today, and then obviously beyond,\u201d Chapman says.<\/p>\n

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Content Creators<\/p>\n

Content Creators<\/h2>\n

Even with some unnamed reviewers being underwhelmed at launch, Rare felt strongly about the core mechanics and overall idea. \u201cWe were so confident in Sea of Thieves that I think the way we saw it is we launched a very pure experience,\u201d Chapman says. \u201cAnd even in the run-up to launch, we were very open about how this was a game that was going to grow with its community \u2013 that it would evolve over time.\u201d Even with that stated promise for Rare, the launch was a lesson learned for the team. \u201cWhat we didn\u2019t expect was the amount at which the lack of content really hurt us in those earlier days,\u201d Chapman says. \u201cBut that first year was very much around\u2026 we need to enrich the experience of the core experience we\u2019ve already built.\u201d<\/p>\n