When Sea of Thieves was announced in June of 2015, everyone was super hyped to see what the game had to offer. Nobody had seen an open-world pirate game before other than maybe Assassins Creed Black Flag and some other smaller games.
After its release in April of 2017, people were very disappointed with the amount of content in the game. They were expecting to get their money’s worth out of the game and only the people who wanted to grind had fun with the game after a certain number of hours. Ever since then, Microsoft Studios has added content and made some major changes with the game that actually adds so much more to the game than when it was first released.
Tall Tales
One of the biggest things that were added to the game was the Tall Tales. These are basically small story missions that you can follow and complete. As of right now, there is 9 total and they each have designated loot that you get for completing them.
You also need to complete them in order because you can’t complete the next one without completing the previous one. I am not going to spoil anything about these other than the fact that there are bosses to defeat, so if you do get the game, team up with your friends or randoms and complete all 9 of them for some epic loot.
There are also checkpoints within these chapters so if you need to stop, you can restart from a specific checkpoint because they take some time to complete each one. The Tall Tales are the closest thing you are going to get to a story mode for this game, even though they might even add one in the future.
Commendations
The Commendations were something that the game had when it first came out, but they have definitely improved the system over time. These include defeating certain creatures like skeletons, Megalodons, and even Krakens. They also include finding a certain amount of specific treasure and even how many other ships and players you can defeat.
The Commendations didn’t give you anything, but now, they give you rewards for completing ones, and the harder the objective, the more loot you will get. It all depends on how much you want to complete these objectives and the rewards can be traded in for some nice stuff.
The game definitely rewards players that try their best. It also feels really good to complete these because you have a sense of accomplishment and some of them give you specific ranks you can put under your name to show off your completed Commendations. They have definitely improved the Commendations since the game came out.
Adventure Mode and Arena Mode
There are two different modes that you can play and one of them was added in a more recent update. The first mode is adventure mode. This is the bread and butter of this game and is what it is mainly about. You can pretty much do anything in this mode. You can sail anywhere you want to, explore any island you want to, get quests to complete for all the different trading companies, fight other players whenever you want to, complete the Tall Tales, and a ton of other things.
This is definitely the mode you will be spending a lot of your time in and until they add a third mode, you are going to have to stick to these two. The second mode is Arena Mode, and you probably know what it is by the name. It is mainly a PVP lobby where there are five ships with either 4-person crews or 2-person crews. You fight for points and you can actually respawn if an enemy team sinks your ship, but you lose all your points.
We tried it, and it was fun, but we went right back into adventure mode after because Arena Mode is not our cup of tea. I hope they add some more modes in the future, maybe some soft-core modes for players who want to relax, but as of right now, these are the only 2 modes in the game.
Trading Companies
When the game first came out, there were only three trading companies to level up. Now there are a total of eight. These various Trading Companies in Sea of Thieves, focus on a specific type of in-game Content from Treasure, Quests, Voyages, and themed Cosmetics to adventures, feats, and fights.
As of this video, the eight companies are the Gold Hoarders, Order of Souls, Merchant Alliance, Reaper’s Bones, The Hunter’s Call, Sea Dogs, Athena’s Fortune, and The Bilge Rats. Each of these has specific things you need to do to level them up and the higher reputation you get with one, the better rewards you will reap.
There are honestly so many different companies in this game that you might get a little overwhelmed if you just start playing. We would say, focus on one specific company that you think is fun, and keep leveling that up until you max level, and then move on to another one.
Pirate Legend
This was and maybe still is a major controversy of the game. Being a Pirate Legend is technically an endgame for Sea of Thieves because you have to max out 3 of the Trading Companies to level 50 to just get access to Pirate Legend stuff. We played the game for so long and we didn’t even get close to becoming Pirate Legend.
Only the players who play non-stop for a very long time will even get to see the quests that the game gives you when you reach this level. I am not going to dwell very long on this subject, but don’t go in expecting to get Pirate Legend in a good amount of time, you will be grinding until your hands fall off to get this.
New Region
The game came out with 3 different regions you can explore and after a year or two, they released another area to explore. These four areas are the Shores of Plenty, Ancient Isles, the Wilds, and the Devil’s Roar, this is the one that was added more recently.
The Devil’s Roar is very dangerous because it is a set of islands with volcanoes on them. They are set to go off at random times and can be deadly to you and your ship if you get caught close to an active one. The plus to this area is that the loot you can get here is amazing, but you can lose it in the matter of minutes if you aren’t careful.
I do hope that they add more areas in the future because new locations just add something to the game and it is an extra area to explore.
Pros and Cons
Now this is the section that can either make you want to get or not buy this game at all. I will start with the Pros of the game first. The replayability is endless. You can get a small group of friends together and play, or you can play by yourself or with randoms.
There are actually so many Trading Companies to level up and all their missions are different from one another. The mechanics are extremely smooth and it is really fun to navigate your way around the world. The islands feel very different and thought out and the world feels very alive with the waves and animals everywhere.
Ok, the cons of the game. The game can get very repetitive at times. You really need to take your time with the game because you will get stressed out. The game is also really hard if you have people on your server that literally want to steal other people’s treasure and sink you. It is very annoying when you spend 3 hours doing quests and you are about to turn in your loot.
At the last second, an enemy ship comes out of nowhere and sinks you and takes all your hard earned treasure and turns it in for themselves.
You then repeat the process and the same thing happens again. Time and time again, things like that happen to you and it can get really annoying. That is why I said they need to add some sort of soft-core mode where you can’t fight other players for the people who want to relax. Other than that, there really isn’t anything bad about this game.
Is it Worth The Money?
Sea of Thieves is definitely worth the money. If you don’t want to pay the full price for it, you can play it for free if you have Xbox Game Pass, although we bought the game so we didn’t need to pay for the subscription every time I wanted to play the game. If you can get it on sale, even better because you will definitely get your money’s worth out of it if you enjoy it even a little bit.
