Every year is defined by not only the great games but also the disappointing ones. Sea of Thieves finds itself in a rather precarious situation just a few weeks into its launch.
The game was easily one of the most anticipated games of 2018 with the potential of some crazy coop gameplay on offer. The coop pirate adventure has you roaming the seas either alone or with a crew of up to four members in search of lost treasure! The basic gameplay revolves around completing quests with one of three factions — The Gold Hoarders, The Order of Souls and Merchants Alliance. The Gold Hoarders as you can imagine give you missions to hunt for treasure; which to be honest are the most fun missions in the game. They really make you think and get you excited about every step you take towards each mission! The Order of Souls are bounty hunt missions that have you hunt for skeleton crews scattered around the world; these are combat oriented missions. Though simplistic in nature, they’re still quite enjoyable. The third faction is by far the most shallow attempt at adding unnecessary padding to a game in the form of the Merchants Alliance.
They send you on fetch quests to get different coloured pigs, cickens and snakes. These are extremely tedious and quite boring and balance out the enjoyable parts of the other two.
After grinding for dozens of hours, the faction missions unlock legendary quests that lead to athenas treasure the supposed end game for Sea of Thieves.
In addition to the main faction content you can of course engage in intense pvp action by trying to raid other pirate crews in each server. The problem however is that the servers don’t have too many players and it does make it a little harder to have fun fighting with the scarce number of crews around. There are special pop up events like Raids that have you fight off waves of skeletons that finally unlock massive loot at skull forts. There’s also a Kraken that appears randomly from time to time along with a storm that can cause you a bit of a problem as you try and return to an outpost with your loot.
While most of the gameplay is fun in Sea of Thieves, the fundamental problem is that there isn’t enough to do in the game. The water mechanics and visuals are absolutely breathtaking, I really wish Rare had spent more time on other parts of the game. The comparisons to No mans Sky are a little unfair, but not unwarranted as there’s literally no proper end game and upgrades and unlocks are only cosmetic in nature.
While I thoroughly enjoyed my first 20 hours in Sea of Thieves, having played it on PC it looked gorgeous and I had no regrets whatsoever. However, there isn’t enough variety in terms of content to keep players coming back for more. Overall, despite the great initial experience, Sea of Thieves ended up being a bit of a disappointment due to repetitive fetch quests and a lack of variety in terms of missions. The beautiful visuals just aren’t enough to make up for the lack of an end game.
