How Sea of Thieves rekindled a lost love of multiplayer games

Microsoft's ambitious pirate-themed cooperative game, Ocean of Thieves, recently received a week-long closed beta on Xbox One and Windows 10. Post-obit its unveiling three years agone, the testing flow opened the game to its largest audience nonetheless, ahead of a slated launch on March 20.

Over recent years I've establish myself less-invested in multiplayer games, following a push for online across nigh every big-budget release. With multiplayer chop-chop becoming a standard for games, I've ever felt something has been lost in this transition. Yet, Sea of Thieves appears to approach online gameplay from a unique angle, and it proposes a concept that leaves me eager for launch.

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The truthful value of teamwork

Multiplayer is a major colonnade of Body of water of Thieves, with mechanics built around its cooperative adventures with up to three friends. While exploring, you encounter features tailored to this philosophy, often requiring multiple roles to be filled by a group.

Few games spark a sense of team accomplishment quite similar Sea of Thieves.

One of the best examples is the ship mechanics, which require a squad effort simply to continue moving. Getting from point to signal rewards potent cooperation, through the management of steering, sails, navigation, combat and various other tasks. Maintaining a consistent team dynamic is key, particularly during its tensest moments.

Few games spark a sense of team accomplishment quite similar Body of water of Thieves, even with the beta's limited content. It's rare to see games necktie together these traits and then well, especially outside of the shooter genre.

Don't finish exploring

Sea of Thieves is strengthed past the changing nature of its open world, with online integration that actually affects gameplay. While similar successes such as Destiny and Tom Clancy's The Division tout their huge shared environments, this serves as a properties rather than translating to meaningful gameplay. In these cases, encountering players often presents a sense of a dynamic world, rather than really creating one.

It's the journey, not the destination, that makes Bounding main of Thieves and then captivating.

While Body of water of Thieves beta content consisted entirely of fetch quests, often perceived as a bad trait in games, how they're approached makes them compelling. With an impressive sandbox packed with small activities and secrets, the game provides incentives to proceed playing outside of the main objectives. It might sound cheesy but information technology's the journeying, not the destination, that makes Sea of Thieves so captivating.

And that'due south rare in games present – it's becoming increasingly mutual to leave players grinding the same experiences to earn new rewards. Body of water of Thieves rewards you for testing the telescopic of its sandbox, in plow valuing the experience over the reward. Rather than following prepare objectives and checkpoints, y'all form your own story.

I feel more than credit should also be given to Sea of Thieves' implementation of voice chat, which although modest, has a huge effect on gameplay. The game actively recommends teams communicate through its own voice conversation, which promotes teamwork at a surface level. This too ties into its proximity conversation characteristic, meaning enemies can hear one another when nearby.

The implementation stands out against similar shared-world titles. Its presence led to some memorable encounters during my sessions, where crews were shouting at one another betwixt ships. Information technology brought me back to an era where in-game voice chat was commonplace, and it added yet another layer to Sea of Thieves.

Bounding main of Thieves is a petty over a month away, yet more details on content are expected ahead of launch. From what was available during the beta, a question lays over the game's content, peculiarly with a $60 cost tag. Provided the game tin serve enough content to continue players with fresh adventures, the game has some promising traction going into launch.

What were your experiences with the Body of water of Thieves beta? Make sure to drop into the comments and share your pirate adventures.