From Glitches to Riches: Rare's Sea of Thieves Journey

Ibrahim pirates the seas in a legal way

- Ibrahim K

Rare’s Sea of Thieves is a first-person action-adventure game and was something new from the studio itself. But at launch, it was panned heavily by critics. The Pixar-esque graphics and ultra-realistic waters didn’t make up for the severe lack of content and bugs in the game. At launch, the game felt like an early access preview but retailed at a hefty $60/£50. Think of this as a No Man’s Sky kinda situation - it is promising but incomplete. I felt like Microsoft might just put a lid on this project as well because they were on a spree of cancelling projects at that time. However, despite the flaws, the game somehow managed to sell relatively well in its launch week so it was saved from being canned by Microsoft.

Everyone was well aware that the game was lacking in many areas, and Rare was determined to change that. The ‘mistakes’ that Rare had to fix were mostly content-related since they had already nailed the visuals side of things. At launch, the game lacked the ability to direct players on what they were supposed to do; all new pirates were left between huge islands feeling adrift. Whilst some were okay with that, the majority and critics weren’t.