Sea of Thieves had, from what I can remember, a pretty rocky launch and subsequent couple years. However, Rare has really committed themselves to making one of the best pirate sim/roleplay games that you can find, period, and I think they've delivered on that promise pretty fantastically.

Sea of Thieves is not the type of game where you work towards some greater RPG style progression. In fact, it has almost no RPG style systems at all. The character you start out playing will be, strength and ability wise, the exact same character you'll be playing 40 hours in.

Where the game really shines is in giving you a space to roleplay a pirate, all the while gathering gold and reputation within the game's various factions. These factions give you access to cosmetics, which further allow you to roleplay and look like the character you have in mind. Cosmetic improvement is really the main thing that you're working towards in terms of progression in Sea of Thieves, but I wouldn't really say that's the game's main draw.

The real fun of the game though, is understanding it and building the skill required to truly make it on the high seas. Whether that means being able to read maps to find treasure, solve riddles and follow clues to secret crypts full of chests, maintain and pilot your ship while fighting skeleton ships (or even other players), and become the skillfully cutthroat pirate that only this game can make you feel like. While there is no real "progression" in terms of statistics or equipment, the true progression just comes from gathering the skill to fully realize this fantasy.

This fantasy is built up with a pretty awesome sailing simulation, in which you have to manually raise your ship's sails, aim them in the correct direction, steer according to a map and compass, load your own cannons, repair holes in the hull and remove water from the ship when you get damaged, things like that. I'm pretty hesitant to play "sim" type games usually, but Sea of Thieves makes all of it's mechanics pretty easy to understand and follow, while still making you do it all yourself. It never feels like a chore, because every aspect of it is so polished, easy to understand, and just plain fun that I have still not gotten tired of it.

There is a LOT of content in this game, with a solid mix between mostly single player "style" missions (all areas are still open to trespassers and PVP enabled, so watch out!), and random world events that are constantly rotating and keeping everything fresh. Even if you don't get into ANY of that content, it's just fun to sail around and interact with players. Of course, "interact" here means being ready to blow holes in the side of someone's ship and take all of their precious loot, if you so desire. And of course, defending your own haul from would-be attackers. And if you don't like to do ANY OF THAT, there are still tons of random things that can happen on any random island, so go exploring for the hell of it! You'll more than likely come across something worth looking into, or more likely, taking for your own.

All in all, Sea of Thieves is an absolutely wonderful game with a lot of really fun scripted content, a seemingly infinite skill ceiling where mastering the game's systems are key to becoming a pirate legend, and a myriad of things to do out on the open seas that are rotating in and out and always giving you a new challenge.

If you like multiplayer games with a blend of PVP and PVE, really enjoy games that freely encourage raiding and intense encounters with people, or just want to explore a wonderfully interesting world with a few friends, give this one a try! You can play it through Xbox Game Pass for PC, which makes it pretty inexpensive to try out.

Dress yourself up like a swashbuckler, grab your hurdy gurdy and a few cannonballs, and set sail!

Sailing around with a group of friends is a lot of fun, whether your crew is an effective team , a dysfunctional, self sabotaging mess of degenerates, or a constant flip flop of the two.
Searching for buried treasure and blasting away at skeletons is a lot of fun, the first handful of times. The game has not much to offer beyond that it seems.
Questing around to obtain gold ultimately feels meaningless, as there's limited cosmetics to spend it on and and even more limited selection of cosmetics that aren't completely ugly.
I enjoy the game and what is has to offer, but it runs of out surprises way too quickly. If the sandbox of the game was bigger, more varied, or more interesting it would warrant more repeat visits to the game.

I know this game was controversial when it came out but, I never paid attention to that. My friends and I got it on a Steam summer sale and have been having a blast with it. It is INCREDIBLY immersive. My complaints are that the sense of progression is incredibly weak and certain parts of the game are tedious and time wasting for no reason. Presumably, a lot of the complaints about lack of content from the beginning are fixed now because it has been out for awhile. After awhile though, you realize the PVP is dogshit with practically zero depth and there is often times no indicator that you even HIT people.

The "abandoned" status this site allows you to use is so freeing. Ten years ago, on Backloggery, a game like this would forever be marked as "unbeaten" in my backlog, and my young dumb ass would have poured fifteen hours into whatever campaign mode exists just to get it out of there in honest fashion. But here on Backloggd in 2021? Ain't nobody got time for that! I love it. The game itself was a semi-broken experience. Anecdote: immediately, somehow, I unmapped the "cancel" button and then whaever I went to use a cannon or a harpoon I was stuck forever. Took five minutes of searching online to figure out what the hell was going on. The concept is pretty cool! Yeah, you're a pirate. Go sail your boat. Go find some treasure. Get rip-roaring drunk, back at the bar. Deck yourself out in elaborate coats and hats like a fancy lad. But doing all of that for a few hours with my friends on a Friday night was plenty for me; any time we tried to advance the story we'd sink the boat or sell our hard-earned jewels to the wrong guy or whatever. This was dumb and this was fun, and there's simply no way we're going to all sit back down - together or solo - to play this for another 15 hours. So thank you, Game Pass! We were curious, we streamed, we shrugged and said "eh, no thanks!" And we're moving on with our lives and with our backlogs.

At first glance, the world this game puts in front of you may look like it has lots of big adventures that are there awaiting you, but that is a mere illusion that fades away after the first few hours. After that point, one realizes that the places you visit are but theater decoration in which a monotonous and dull task will take place (kill skeletons, dig treasures, and get/deliver stuff). Those places don't exist by themselves just for the purpose they are given when you choose a mission. All the systems that are involved just make that bolder (achievements, missions, factions, cosmetics as the only reward).
What I like about the game is the situations that happen naturally between you (and your crew) and other crews. All the missions that are available to you work to create an excuse for you to get into those kinds of organic situations with other players. Sadly Rare did never address the griefing they allow, instead, they kept working on giving more varied missions (still dull and pointless tho, just takes more time to do them) that never should have been the focus.
To finish I'll say that the newly added tales just make this problem more noticeable as they're preset and as or duller than the regular missions.

Sea of Thieves is a delightful pirate playground that's immersive and ripe for emergent player-driven stories.

Player experience will vary extremely from an individual to another - Each ingredient is fairly straightforward on its own, but thrive vividly when combined in numerous combinations. At the base level, Sea of Thieves is endless busy-work without much in the way of game-modifying progression, and so relies heavily on the fun of happenstance on any given session.

The game actually does a very good job of invisibly guiding these happenstances quite often in crews of 3 or 4, but may be more inconsistent with lower player counts. Player interaction woven with seemingly random events, and finding bonus treats or breadcrumb trails along the way layered on top of the base voyages you and your crew set sail on form the entirety of Sea of Thieve's constantly unfurling gameplay loop, and there's not much quite like it on the market today.

I also find the lack of vertical progression to be a boon - Its refreshing when compared to other games on the market, and also makes Sea of Thieves a game that's never daunting to return back to from a hiatus, never a need to "catch up" with established friends or foes who have played since launch. Perfect for yearly revisits.

Sea of Thieves gives you all the pieces for a thrilling and flavorful contained sandbox every time you play.

One of the most disappointing games I've played in some time. On one hand, it's one of the prettiest games I've seen, with water physics that look like sex; unfortunately, the actual game part of this game is really lacking in pretty much anything.
I wouldn't complain if this was a narrative forced game but it's not, it's an always-online game that you need to play with friends in order to play it properly, and I'm sorry but the game just isn't that much fun, the missions are repetitive, there is no upgrading so there's no reason to keep doing it if your not getting anything in return other then cosmetic changes.

This game has been ongoing for 3 years and there is still no real reason to play this game, let's hope that the new Pirates of The Caribbean DLC will add something new to this game.