NIGHTMARE GALLEY

Vomit-seared fish and comradeship in SEA OF THIEVES

NEED TO KNOW

WHAT IS IT? A raucous slapstick antidote to every other self-serious pirate game

EXPECT TO PAY $40

DEVELOPER Rare Ltd

PUBLISHER Xbox Game Studios

REVIEWED ON Intel Core i7-7700, 16 GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070

MULTIPLAYER Yes

LINK seaofthieves.com

Before release, the promotional material for Sea of Thieves focused on all the dramatic stuff: digging up lost treasure, bludgeoning skeletons, firing fat pirates onto desert islands. It’s understandable they’d want their potential audience to expect breathless adventure. But the true joy of Rare’s eccentric eye patch-’em-up doesn’t come from the moments of swashbuckling bravado, but the daft bits in between.