Sea of Thieves: 2023 Edition (Steam) PC

Sea of Thieves is an action adventure game set on the high seas in which players must set sail across a beautifully rendered ocean. The play of light on water is perfectly captured, and just sailing around looking at the ocean is a good way to kill some time while waiting for your buddies to join in.

About the Game

Players can play as pirates or as regular sailors from a first-person point of view. When playing as the latter, you are provided with a ship, some companions if you are playing multi-player or co-op, and minimal instructions along the lines of: ‘Sail to an island and bring back something valuable.’ Playing as a pirate is, as you might imagine, lawless and potentially more fun! Track other ships and attack them for their gold and other loot, seizing and taking it to port to cash in for yourself.

Playing the game as a sailor, the premise is simple: accept a mission and sail off to an island, using the on-board map to guide you. Once on the island, dig up treasure, fight skeletons or solve a riddle – for all of which you are rewarded should you win. Then return – with your loot if possible – to the home port, and accept another mission to go off all over again.

Extras

For an extra special treat, look out for ship wrecks, which you can go into and retrieve crates of sugar and tea to trade in. There are also sea creatures to overcome, like kraken and megalodons – including a super-rare megalodon called the ‘shrouded ghost’ who must be lured from the deeps with gold. In short, by you throwing your previous treasure overboard.

The loot you successfully bring to port can then be sold for gold, which is then used to make (largely cosmetic) improves to your ship’s hull and sails and to your weapons (more about which below) You can cut out the middle man by raiding skeleton forts or attacking other ships and seizing their gold directly.

Skeleton forts are advertised to every player in the game – a skull-shaped cloud floats above the fortress, attracting the attention of everyone: regular sailors and pirates alike, so be prepared for a bit of a free-for-all when it all kicks off!

The game has a fun cartoonish style and emphatic physics engine that allows players to survive the most unlikely stunts – like being shot out of a cannon, for example! Try your limits and see what stunts you can make your character perform.

Four Ways with Weapons

Players are given four weapons right at the beginning of the game, and these are not upgradeable, putting the emphasis on the fun, rather than the combat scenarios. You are also given a small amount of ammunition, after which you will need to find ammo boxes in order to reload – all but the cutlass!

The four weapons are a blunderbuss, a flintlock pistol, a sniper rifle (sneaky for pirates!) and a cutlass.

Ways to play

Players must learn to steer the ship, navigating to the right spot, hoist and lower the sails and shoot the cannons when necessary. There are, loosely, three ways to play: