4 Insane Experiences We Had In The ‘Sea Of Thieves’ Closed Beta

For those who haven’t already read my extensive ramblings on the subject, Rare‘s upcoming multiplayer pirate game, Sea of Thieves, will be one of the most popular games of the 2018. After playing the closed beta over the weekend, my prediction remains unchanged.

The game tasks players with becoming a “pirate legend” by gaining a reputation with the different factions that exist in the world. While we know more about how the game is played now, we still don’t know what the consequences of these reputations will be.

It’s fun in the same way PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is fun – it gives you a huge world, an objectives, and leaves the rest up to you. This freedom inside an open world coupled with the unpredictability of other players makes the game unique each time you play it. It creates stories that you’ll love to retell, and that’s what’s so powerful about this kind of emergent gameplay.

While there’ll be a bunch of different quests available in the final game, the closed beta only includes those offered by the Gold Hoarders, who’s goal is to accumulate wealth. In other words, they’ll send you on treasure hunting missions, some with a simple map, others requiring some puzzle solving.

Having spent a bit of time with the game, I’ve been left with a bunch of stories that I must share with you all. Here’s the highlights.

The first encounters

Upon entering the game, you have three options: set sail on a large four-person ship, go with one other buddy on a smaller, nimbler vessel, or go it alone in a small boat.

Having played the game at E3 last year, I had a heap of fun teaming up with three strangers and was keen to give that another go, as my pals with access to the beta weren’t around at the time. I start the matchmaking process and wait to be teamed up with some new friends. I’m excited.

I spawn on a large ship that’s currently anchored at a small island, but before I can even get my bearings, my screen turns white for a few seconds and when vision returns, I’m in a cell inside the ship. “Is this part of the game?” I think to myself.

No. It turns out the team can vote to put players in the ship’s brig and leave them there. The assholes I was matched with didn’t want a fourth player, so they chucked me in jail and waited for me to give up and join another game. Dogs.

Slightly annoyed, I enter another game with three strangers. This one’s going better – I’m helping them dig up one of four treasure chests buried on an island. I pick up mine – it happens to be The Chest Of A Thousand Grogs, which simulates being absolutely plastered when carrying it – and stumble back to the ship, giggling to myself.

My screen goes white again. You motherfuckers. I’m back in the goddamn brig and one of these pricks stands there and plays the accordion while I digitally rot. Nek minute, I get a message from one of them – “quit plz”.

At that point I figured I’d go it alone on a solo ship rather than waste time getting thrown into boat jail again. I get that these folks wanted to play as a three-man team, but I can see this becoming an issue and something that Rare might want to consider changing.

The surprising terror of deep water and lurking sharks

After my experiences with strangers, I played a stint in a one-man vessel. Despite it being a little more lonely, I still had a great time and managed to avoid any big confrontations with other players, which I would probably lose unless it was another lone wolf.

I had just finished digging up a treasure chest on a nearby island and began the trek back to the nearest outpost. You see, getting the treasure is only half the battle, you gotta get it back to a Gold Hoarder for it to mean anything. You could go on a journey and collect a ton of chests, but if another ship ganks them on the way back to an outpost, your hard work was for nothing.

I’m sailing along, everything’s going totally fine, then suddenly, I’m flying through the air and into the sea. I still have no fucking idea whether I got hit from a cannon on an island or a shot from another boat, but it surprised the shit outta me.

This is the first time I’ve entered deep water in the game, and the sense of depth is actually quite creepy. I surface only to see my ship sailing away from me at speed. There’s no way I’m going to catch up to it. As I try anyway, I notice I’m being stalked by two fucking sharks. Jesus.

At this point, I resign myself to a salty death, but a weird Poseidon / merman bloke popped up out of nowhere to rescue me. My saviour transported me back to my still sailing ship and I reached the outpost. I owe him my life.

I never knew bottomless digital water could be so frightening.

The incredible bludgeoning of a poor, lonesome player

My last jaunt in the Sea of Thieves was by far the best, because I got to team up with some of my pals for an adventure and not be thrown in the fucking brig. The three of us jumped into a game and had the remaining position filled by a bloke named Terry or something who we adopted as our own.

We encountered far more players in this session than I had previously, which made for some pretty tense battles throughout, but there was one that was so one-sided it became obscenely funny.

We rolled up to an island and saw a one-person vessel anchored in the shallows, its owner presumably looking for treasure somewhere on land. We slowed our speed and dropped the anchor before absolutely pummelling the side of this poor fool’s ship with cannon balls. The player tried to scurry aboard and repair the damage, but it was too late, that shit was sinking far too fast.

There was something about the efficiency and speed with which we destroyed this boat that was incredibly funny to me. Sure, we could have left them alone, but this is pirate country and we yearn for treasure, bitch.

They just wanted to be friends

After gathering a huge haul of treasure, the same crew and I were heading back to cash it in with the Gold Hoarders. At this point in, any other ship or player we saw in the game was considered a threat, particularly since we had so many chests on board.

In the distance, a small two-person ship turns towards us. It’s a quick little critter, so it’s gaining on us fast. We panic. They look to be manoeuvring for an attack – either to ram or pull up beside us to board or fire their cannons. We prepare to defend the treasure at all costs.

The voice chat in the team is tense and the cannons are loaded. We all man one each and wait for the attacking vessel to come into range. As it turns to become parallel with us, at the exact moment we all fire cannon balls straight into its hull, a delicate female voice chimes in over the voice chat – “hello!”

But it’s too late, four fresh holes appear on the side of her ship and she peels away, screaming, “you guys are mean!” We attacked a small ship that probably just wanted to say hey.

This wasn’t us, but the chaos was similar.

Do I feel bad? Kinda, but that’s the beauty of games like this – you just don’t know what kind of people you’ll encounter.

That’s just a taste of the madness, friends. When the full game’s released on March 20, there’ll be other factions to work for and plenty more players to interact with. I, for one, can’t bloody wait.

Until then, here’s a GIF of me dancing on the bowsprit of a ship. Enjoy it.


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