Sea of Thieves Review:
Shiny Treasure or Driftwood?

Sea of Thieves - our first review of a co-op game and the one that almost didn't make it into existence. Why, you ask? How could we possibly review a game after only playing for an hour at best. After said hour, we were already discussing hoisting the white flag and calling it a day. Watching our first big haul of treasure chests floating atop the waves while our ship sets out to measure the depths of the sea… The scenery of our avatars' lifeless bodies being washed ashore, made us question our fit for the genre.

We expected looting, shooting and drinking rum. What we got was shoot-outs with battle-ready veteran players, avatars and ships fully customized - looking like a circus troupe set out for their next big gig. It only took them a few cannonballs and fire bottles, until we found ourselves in the afterworld.

‘Yeah, the angry steam reviews said so. Veterans on the hunt for beginners?’, we said. Should we have listened? ‘Let’s try again, and this time: be more cautious and maybe… do not wave at enemy pirates.’
And so, although heartstruck by our first big loss, we did try again. But would you? And will this game be the right one for you and your co-op partner(s)?

In this review, we want to give you an overview about what kept us going as well as what we liked and disliked while playing Sea Thieves in Co-op! If you just want some quick guidance as for whether this game is for you or not, check out the chapter 'Is this game for you?'
Or check out 'Our impressions' at the end, where we list our own likes and dislikes.

Sea of Thieves is an open-world action-adventure game by Rare Ltd. For our review, we played around 40 hours in March and June 2024 on Steam.
The game was fully released on Steam on June 3rd 2020 and since had some minor and major updates as well as ongoing seasons. In April 2024, Sea of Thieves was released on Playstation 5. It is also available on Xbox Game Pass.

• Playing requires a Xbox Live Account. If playing on Steam, it has to be linked to your Steam account.
• Sea of Thieves uses the Third-Party DRM (digital rights management) Easy Anti-Cheat.

The character creator is quite unique, as it offers a big palette of different looks for your pirate. You can choose from different body shapes and sizes, genders, hair and faces. The only limitation is that all avatars are randomly generated and there is no option to edit anything. You will have to settle for the one individual that you like the most. There is an option to ‘hold’ several avatars and look at more options. Later, you will be able to customize some aspects of your persona, like haircut and haircolor or tattoos, but anatomical features (height, weight, gender) cannot be changed.

If you later decide that you would like to completely reroll your character, the only two options are re-starting from scratch (and losing all progress made) or buying a cash shop item (which costs around 5 €/$, sadly; we will be talking about the ingame-shop later).

After you select your avatar, there is a short tutorial called Maiden Voyage which takes around 15 minutes. The tutorial teaches you the fundamental controls and game mechanics before it sends you out into the sea. Afterwards, you are mostly on your own. There are tutorial pop-ups and some hints, but as is the nature of sandbox games, you are invited to create your own gaming experience instead of following a main story quest line, for example.

With this in mind, we decided that our main focus was casual PvE with some open-world PvP sprinkled in. After reading in the introduction about how our first hour(s) in the game went regarding the PvP, you could expect us to have turned away from any sea combat completely. And rightfully so. Initially, we turned to Safer Seas, a game mode that was added to the game by the end of 2023. This mode allows you and your crew to play on a private server. In this mode, only you and your invited crew can play on a private server, without having to worry about being attacked by enemy players.

There, we tried to grasp the ropes (quite literally): what to do, where to go, how to sail the ship and how to combat NPCs. This was our way to prepare for the occasional, more stressful PvP encounters in the High Seas, the ‘normal’ game mode with open-world PvP.

When starting up the game, you can choose between High Seas and Safer Seas. After that, you can choose to invite up to 3 friends into your crew and load into the game together. Alternatively, if you are playing on the Steam client, you can always use the Steam Overlay to quickly join or invite friends from your friends list (see our guide here on how to do this).
For us, joining a party before entering a world has proven to be tricky. More than once, we were stuck in the loading screen together for minutes and could never actually load into a server. To solve this, one of us simply started up a game session and the other joined in later, using the Steam overlay.

A crew consists of 1 to 4 players. Depending on the size of your group, you should invest in a smaller or larger Captained ship: a sloop is ideal for 1-2 players, a brigantine for up to 3 and a galleon for up to 4 players. Depending on their size, the ships have more or less cannons on deck that can be fired individually.
On one single server there can be up to five active crews, regardless of their party size, which results in up to 20 people per instance.

The cooperative gameplay in Sea of Thieves will immerse you quickly and make you feel responsible for part of the success. As part of a crew, there are so many options and tasks that you can divide between each other: planning a route, steering the rudder, handling the sails and anchor, preparing food - the list is long and your crew members will gladly share those tasks with you. You will barely run out of things to take care of, and if you do, it will feel like a well-deserved break. Playing cooperatively, at least in a crew of two players, felt much more rewarding. Coordination and Communication are important, especially in stressful situations like sudden PvP-encounters. You will want to work out some form of task sharing like one is the captain, taking the rudder and shooting the cannons, while the other player fixes any holes and takes care of fires on deck and water entering the ship’s belly. During our time playing Sea of Thieves we always stuck to our Sloop, the smallest of the 3 available ship models, designed for solo players or crews of two. When engaging in any sort of on-ship battles, be it enemy players or PvE encounters, we often concluded how difficult and stressful it would be, to sail the seas as a one-person-crew (admiration goes out to all the solo-Sloopers out there!). Reloading and firing the cannon, navigating the ship, turning, folding sail, unfolding sail, adjusting the angle of the sail, hurrying below deck and patching up holes with wood planks, filling buckets of water, emptying the bucket, putting out fires, eating fruits, … the list of tasks does not even end here, but both our avatars’ and the Sloop’s healthpool most often did… Arrrrrr-gh. Co-op in itself is implemented well. You can fully co-op the few story missions called Tall Tales and progress is being saved chapter-wise for all participating players. There is a Tall Tale crossover with Disney's 'Pirates of the Carribean' and one with 'Monkey Island', the game by LucasArts. Every member of the crew possesses equal rights and is not just following decisions made by the party leader or host (e.g. everyone can start a mission, take the rudder, loot the loot, and so on). By november 2023, Rare also added Guilds into the game, which act as a social hub and also grant some minor benefits (like shared reputation and some special cosmetics).

One moment you are peacefully sailing across the calm seas, the next you are being chased by a giant shark or hostile skeleton ship. You need to adapt to that - and fast that is! Is it easy for every individual personality to deal with sudden bursts of stress? Absolutely not! Will losing your pile of treasure chests that you just worked on for the past forty minutes be easy on your crew? Also no.
This is why we decided to rank the conflict potential as medium to high. Nullifying your progress requires a special mindset to cope with and especially so if you are multiple people and failure could depend on just one wrongly prioritized action or missed shot by one of your crew. It is easy to blame each other for a battle lost while still being pumped with adrenaline instead of shrugging your shoulders and accepting to respawn and start from scratch.
We found that reminding ourselves that the fun lays within the in-game activities themselves helped immensely. Being focused on the short-lasting dopamine when turning in your treasure chests and therefore griefing any losses of loot to PvP (or PvE) is hurting your fun. Seeing your ship sink to the depths is never a positive sight, but once you have told yourselves that treasure and gold coins are great, but the experiences on the way hold greater value, the game becomes exponentially more fun. And always remember: gold coins are, aside from buying ships, mainly used for character and ship customization. Of which you can only equip one at a time anyway.

Sea of Thieves offers you a variety of game content and you can pick the activities that appeal to your playstyle and interests the most.
If you prefer story-driven PvE content, there are the Tall Tales we mentioned before: ‘A Pirate’s Life’ where you help out Jack Sparrow (from Disney’s The Pirates of the Caribbean) and ‘The Legend of Monkey Island’, a tale around LucasArts’ Guybrush Threepwood.

Aside from that, there is the reputation system for the different Trading Companies. There are four major starting factions: The Gold Hoarders, the Order of Souls, the Guild Alliance and the Merchant Alliance. Later, you can also unlock two more factions: the Reapers and Athena's Fortune. By fulfilling repeatable quests, activities and open-world events, you can progress through the ranks and earn yourself specific rewards.

If you ever need some inspiration for what to do or focus on in-game, you can follow the season passes’ objectives and collect costumes for your avatar or decorations for your ship. The Season Pass in itself is free, but there is a premium version called the Plunder Pass.

If you don’t mind or even seek encounters with other players, there is a variety of PvP content. There is a match-making system called The Battle of the Sea of Thieves and, of course, unrestricted open-world PvP.

After unlocking a certain rank with one of the factions (the Trading Companies), you can set sail as an Emissary. This provides you with various benefits, such as increased gold when turning in treasure chests and access to high-rewards quests. As a downside (or upside, for some) however, you will be marked for every player on the world map. As soon as you decide to sail under an emissary flag, you will compete with other crews. The longer you keep up your emissary flag, the higher your status will rise, which adds up to any treasure turned in and the collected reputation.
Players sailing under the same emissary flag can choose to either support each other or try to sink any competitors. A sunken ships means not only losing your loot but also marks the end of your emissary status, so you will have to buy a new contract with one of the factions' representatives. The Reaper's Bones factions on the other hand, is - by lore - focused on hunting down other emissaries and stealing their bounty.

As Sea of Thieves is a sandbox adventure, your goal is yours to choose. Whether you want to collect all of the costumes for your avatar or achieve high ranks with all the factions, is fully up to you.

Depending on what type of game you are looking for, this could be a huge pro or a con. Playing without a clear objective can leave some players disappointed and confused, as you have to craft your own schedules and priorities. You will not be guided by a questline, and aside from the season passes’ objectives that grant you progression on the same, there are not many checkboxes to tick off.

As mentioned before, in Sea of Thieves, you take on the role of a pirate and sail the ocean in search of loot, mystery and action. Whatever action you might be looking for, be it casual and relaxed PvE or stressful, quick PvP, you can adjust your gaming experience towards whatever suits your style best. You will start out with a modest sloop, a small and humble ship, and set out to earn gold coins and reputation by following treasure maps, sailing out to do fetch-quests or participating in time-restricted open-world events. Reputation is earned for various factions called Trading Companies, which can be raised by turning in treasure chests with the factions’ representatives.

If you would like to avoid other players, you can simply opt into the Safer Seas game mode. Just note that you will have to accept 30% less gold and reputation rewards as a downside and Trading Companies will cap out at level 40. We would recommend Safers Seas if you plan on playing together with children or crew members that really dislike engaging in any form of PvP. Otherwise, the cut in gold is pretty significant. Especially, as one the first major goals will be saving up enough gold pieces to buy your first own ship, called Captained Ship (250.000 gold pieces for a 1-2 player sloop, 375.000 for a Brigantine and 500.000 for a Galleon). This allows you to fully buy and not just rent a ship, which unlocks ship decoration (like colorful sails earned on the Season Pass), Captain’s Voyages (quests handed out by the Trading Companies) and Milestones (a sort of repeatable achievements system that rewards you with cosmetics or titles).

We found the palette of activities to be quite broad. From fishing and cooking to treasure- or bounty-hunts, you can choose the niche that appeals to you most. We especially enjoyed the time-limited open-world events, which are announced by specifically shaped clouds in the sky (e.g. a skull or a ship).

The replay value is quite high, especially if you are a collector, enjoy playing season content or enjoy structuring your gaming sessions on your own, without having to follow story lines or ticking off checkboxes (as with most other sandbox games). There is no natural ending, aside from the few linear story adventures called Tall Tales.

Whether you only have less than an hour or the whole evening to play, you will find an activity matching your schedule. Therefore, we would recommend the game to anyone, even people with a very busy schedule. When playing in Safer Seas, it would even be possible for you to quickly go afk between activities without the looming threat of other players plundering you in the meantime.

Currently, we have no information about any planned DLC’s, but the developer is still working on the game. There are regular content updates and seasonal content with a season pass on the side. Some of the rewards that can be earned without spending any money on the season pass, but others will require paying.

This involuntarily brings us to the topic of microtransactions. With Sea of Thieves being a full-price buy-to-play title, the existence of an in-game cash shop automatically leads to raised eyebrows. And rightfully so.

But in Sea of Thieves, we found the items offered in their cash shop to be acceptable. While veteran players (which we are not) may share a different view on this, especially as we have not taken an in-depth-look at every item offered, it is mostly cosmetics. There are some utility items, like that one item we mentioned to change your pirate’s appearance, but nothing that would offer you an increase in power (in the pay-to-win sense). If you want to support the development of the game further, enjoy the game and have the money to spare, of course you can buy that (extremely cute) parrot pet and its matching outfit.

This is a bit of a tough one for us. We did not encounter too many gameplay issues or technical problems, but the ones we did were consistently hindering us from playing the game properly - or even starting it up. While we experienced rather little technical problems, like bugs or glitches, we were held off from playing by the unbelievably long loading times.

This was especially annoying when, as stated above, trying to join the same lobby and then loading into a new game as a crew. Oftentimes, we were greeted by Beard Errors. All errors ingame are named after Beards and there is a long list of different ones. You can find the full collection and some hints at what they stand for here).
Most often we received the Strawberry Beard or Hazelnut Beard, which vaguely pointed towards connectivity issues. At times only after having waited in a loading screen for over 5 minutes at a time. This also isn’t a rare occurrence, as we also regularly ran into these issues during primetimes. On Fridays and the following Saturday consecutively, we received a Lavender Beard error. Rare's support page explained to us, that the servers were either down for maintenance or firewall/antivirus problems or ISP connection issues. A tough one to sort out on your end as a player. The game status could in theory be checked on their official website, but more often than not it just points to no information at all. No schedules of ongoing maintenance or announcements about when the servers were down could be found.
After trying a couple of times to log in, we had collected a bunch of different error code names, all telling us that the game was temporarily unavailable. When looking up ways to fix the login issues, we discovered lots and lots of reports and complaints from the playerbase. As new players ourselves, we were not aware just how long some problems have been in the game and remained unfixed (and - there seem to be lots of other problems, bugs and glitches as well, which veterans are discussing online).

If this is a major problem or red flag for you, this game will probably not make you happy (all of the time, or at least not as soon as you end up in a chain of beard errors).

In all honesty: we did have small arguments after heated situations in-game and you might have them too, depending on you and the other players’ personality of course. Losing most or all progress you worked for hard in the last hour just feels bad and can frustrate you (if it wouldn’t, you get the award for most laid-back gamer ever). ‘Why did you (not)… Where were you… If you had not, then…’ - blaming oneself or (even easier) your co-op partner is a way to cope with frustration, after all. If this would cause strain on your friendship/relationship, then Sea of Thieves might not be the ideal game for your party.

An obvious red flag will be any strong fear of open and deep water, sharks and dark or tight spaces (like ruins and underwater tunnels that get flooded with water).

PvP can cause high levels of stress, anxiety and pressure. To avoid this, we recommend playing exclusively in Safer Seas.

Less obvious are potential problems with motion sickness. We found this to be a smaller issue during the first few hour of playing, probably resulting from the small POV and very close camera in first-person view. Paired with some shaky rough seas and quick camera turns, this can trigger some symptoms if you are sensitive to this.

In our opinion, the game is not fully suited for very young or more sensitive children, as some enemy models can be quite frightening (skeletons, sharks and merfolk). Especially when playing with children, we recommend either muting the integrated voice- and text-chat or stay in Safer Seas alltogether.

Rare states on their website, that they are committed to including everybody. To mention just some of the features: keyboard and controllers are supported and most controls can be rebound; there is built-in voice and text chat (with text-to-speech and speech-to-text support) as well as voiced contextual messages and emotes to choose from; colourblind filters.

Sea of Thieves is an incredible open world action-adventure and we had loads of fun discovering all nooks and crannies of the game world. It felt as if we had never seen or done everything, so we were constantly surprised by something new, shiny and fun. Honestly, this game will not be for everyone and we think that most of the fun comes from playing with (and against) others - especially friends and family add a lot to the experience. Having to coordinate and communicate in stressful situations can be challenging, but there is also so much potential for personal growth (how can you improve your gameplay through better commands and task division? How can you navigate a game world without having a minimap? How can you structure a gaming session for your crew so that everyone enjoys it?).

Besides the positives, we also found it challenging to keep our long-term motivation after having dabbled into most types of content and trying out different game modes like transporting goods or doing treasure hunts. We miss some more diverse content, that maybe changes from season to season, or themed ingame events.

Additionally, we missed a deeper character progression. Besides the cosmetic progression, there are not many ‘traditional’ RPG-elements like a skill tree. There is the Milestone system, but the rewards are again mostly cosmetic. As you start off each gaming session with a clean slate, there is not much for you to carry over from one session to the next. Your stashes and barrels will be reset to a default amount and treasure chests that you did not turn in before logging off will be deleted.

Nonetheless, if the pirate setting and cooperative aspects of the game interest you, we still highly recommend the game for you to try out. We hope to someday share a barrel of rum with you and your crew, in the Sea of Thieves!

Overall, we rated Sea of Thieves as a solid:

4 / 5.0