Sea Of Thieves (Xbox One/Xbox Series X|S)

Game description:

Sea of Thieves is a 2018 action-adventure game developed by Rare and published by Xbox Game Studios. The player assumes the role of a pirate who completes voyages from different trading companies. The multiplayer game sees players explore an open world via a pirate ship from a first-person perspective. Groups of players encounter each other consistently during their pilgrimages, sometimes forming alliances, and sometimes going head-to-head.

Gameplay:

The game is set in a shared world, which means groups of players will encounter each other throughout their adventures. Players can freely explore the game's open world on their own or with other players. When exploring islands players can find various resources: food like bananas, coconuts, and mangos, which restore their health, as well as wood planks, firebombs, blunderbombs, and cannonballs. Rowboats can be used to carry cargo while avoiding potential hazards. There are eight weapons players can choose from, including cutlasses, pistols, blunderbusses, sniper rifles, throwing knives, double barrel pistols, blowpipes and harpoon guns, that can be used to defeat hostile enemies. Players can complete voyages offered by the game's three main trading companies: Gold Hoarders, Order of Souls, and the Merchant Alliance. In the quests offered by Gold Hoarders, players are given a treasure map or a riddle to locate a treasure chest. The voyages offered by the Order of Souls are combat challenges, in which players travel to islands specified by the quest to defeat waves of skeletons. The Merchant Alliance's missions require players to deliver animals or cargo to certain vendors within a limited time.

Game review:

Sea of Thieves is a pirate fantasy sandbox with an enormous amount of things to do, made unpredictable and exciting by the addition of other players. Coordinating together across the deck of a massive pirate ship is pure chaos at times, but it’s also endlessly entertaining. The cosmetic-only progression system doesn’t give you as much incentive to keep playing as I’d have liked and its free-form nature left me feeling lost at sea at times – but if you’ve got a good group of two or three friends to play with, it’s hard to find a game as entertaining to jump aboard.