Happy birthday, Sea of Thieves! It’s been five years since Rare’s delightful multiplayer pirate adventure first welcomed in treasure hunters, skull seekers, and bloodthirsty buccaneers – and almost the same again since the studio started work on the project back in the day.
In that time, there’ve been pre-launch beta highs and post-launch lows – particularly as the studio grappled with complaints about a lack of content in Sea of Thieves’ earliest days of release – but some five years and 38 content updates later, it’s proven to be one of the most beloved, enduring live service games around.
It’s a journey that’s seen Rare’s initial ambitions shift and grow in step with Sea of Thieves’ energised community – we’ve seen AI controlled skeleton ships take to the waves despite an initial player-only focus, the advent of authored narrative in a sandbox initially designed around player-created stories – and to celebrate the game’s fifth birthday today, Eurogamer grabbed a grog and settled down with lead designer Shelley Preston, creative director Mike Chapman, executive producer Joe Neate, and Rare studio head Craig Duncan, charting some of the team’s most memorable milestones and moments along the way.
POST-KINECT RARE AND THE GENESIS OF SEA OF THIEVES
Craig Duncan: Kinect Sports, for whatever people said about it, was a 20-odd million selling franchise… it was hugely successful, but [after that] we definitely felt it was a reinvention point for Rare, the time and the opportunity to go and do something new.