When E3 week ended, I was excited for games that weren’t on my radar, but also cooled off on games I was looking forward to. Sea of Thieves falls under the latter category. Ever since Assassins Creed IV: Black Flag came out, I was craving a pirate game. Not just any pirate game, a pillaging, blundering pirate game full of blood and swords, guns, and rum. Everything Sea of Thieves isn’t. The very fabric of this game is built upon communication, something that games these days require to succeed in anything other than First Person Shooters.
Communication can make games fun, but it can also be the downfall of a game as well. Take Evolve for instance. Gaming outlets were raving about how fantastic this game was, but it required communication between players on a precise level. But the lack of talking between players leads to chaos, and not in a good way. In order to defeat the monster, all 4 players had to be in sync. If they weren’t, you suffered. In Sea of Thieves players will be required to communicate with one another in order to gain a tactical advantage. Imagine being a player having to fight off five enemies who have a stronger boat with bigger weapons… it’s nearly impossible.
When ACIV was released, it was my most anticipated game of that year. The idea of sailing around the Caribbean plundering and pillaging seemed like a blast. Not only would you be doing pirate things, I’d be diving down to ship wrecks and fighting off sharks as I was doing so, along with fishing and hunting down animals. A true pirate game. What made ACIV so great, besides the plundering, pillaging, and naval battles, was Ubisoft did a great job at making Kenway look and feel like a pirate. His voice was rough, tough, and he didn’t ask questions, he just did things that a pirate would do. In Sea of Thieves, the voices of the characters don’t feel like they belong in a pirate game, they simply feel like someone was trying hard for a pirate voice, it feels almost like it’s forced. Many voice actors are directed and told what the developers want, in this game it’s almost like they felt lucky just to have voice overs. Bringing a good cast, a good strong character base, and a strong story is what makes a pirate game fun, not just pillaging for the sake of it.
In a recent podcast episode, IGN went more in depth on why they liked Sea of Thieves. While they made it sound like it was fun, they didn’t play it by themselves. They played with people they were comfortable with and knew their gaming styles. I would be interested to see if they felt the same way after playing it alone with a couple of random players. Rare has been known more for Kinect games and not much for a deep story line that keeps players invested. But does a game need a strong story to succeed? Absolutely not. Titanfall didn’t have a strong story, but yet it was fun. The advantage was that you could hop in and out of matches in an instant with Titanfall as they were only 10 to 15 minutes each. The main difference between Sea of Thieves and Titanfall is the progressive gameplay. Titanfall was something different, something worth checking out and ultimately, a new take on an old and dying genre of military shooters. Sea of Thieves has a typical “dude bro” voice over, a lack of premium content, and doesn’t seem to take itself seriously, which is a serious problem.
The issue I have with Rare games as well, is that they always seem to have an arcade feel to them. What made ACIV great, again, was partly due to the art direction and the feel of the game. The arcade feel takes away the seriousness that is required for a good pirate game, something Rare hasn’t done with Sea of Thieves. Pillaging should feel like your having an effect on the world, making you feel like you’re doing something ‘wrong’ in a sense. With the ‘arcadey’ feel, I can’t take this game seriously. Also, with the lack of single player content, I can’t seem to be excited for this game. Getting a game where it’s required to play with friends isn’t something that I find appealing, it’s almost a chore to do such a thing. Coordinating “game time” with friends is nearly impossible for adults with their work schedules and then wives, kids, and everything else that gets in the way.
The preview sounds promising, but it lacks the depth from a single players stand point. Since Destiny has been a big hit, some developers are trying to capture that “magic” from an online only game you can play with your friends at all hours of the day. But what happens when you want to play it alone? The game is not something like ACIV where you just hop on a boat and command others to do your bidding, you have to tighten the sails, steer the boat, and fire the cannons physically. Not only is all those things impossible by yourself, getting into a lobby or randoms on your team wouldn’t be much better without communication. Every team member would be running around chaotically, not knowing what to do. Also, in part of the quote: “From everything we’ve heard, Sea of Thieves is going to be a massive, ambitious multiplayer game on the scale of Destiny and The Division. The thing is, aside from last year’s trailer and a few bits of info throughout the months, we don’t really know exactly what we’ll be doing in Sea of Thieves. Will we be able to customize our own ships? Sail through uncharted waters and stumble upon mysterious islands? How many friends will we be able to swashbuckle alongside? We’re hoping Microsoft and Rare answer some of these questions at E3.” they explain that we don’t really know what to expect from this game yet as far as customization and the size of the world.
I respect that players and the media in general think this game will be a success, but I can’t agree with them in the slightest. I was excited for this game until Microsoft’s E3 conference and the Let’s Play style video they had to promote the game. Not only was this game not interesting to me in the slightest, it doesn’t have a release date. To keep up on the official news for Sea of Thieves you can check out their website here.
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