Right: Socializing
Things Sea of Thieves Gets Right and Wrong
Without the social aspect of the game, Sea of Thieves would suffer greatly due to the lack of wide variety in the content it offers. What keeps similar missions and combat mechanics varied are the people you do them with, and the people you run into along the way.
Fortunately Sea of Thieves lends itself to being a social experience by including ways to just mess around with friends, and the inclusion of a fairly large-range proximity chat which allows players of different crews to socialize as well. Getting drunk on grog while trying to sail a ship with your crew is a challenging, memorable experience, and hanging out with random crews you found at an island outpost and drinking at the tavern while listening to the music you’re playing get consistently worse, is just plain old fun. Add the excitement of teaming up with a crew you’d otherwise be fighting to take on a kraken or skeleton fort, and the social aspect of the game really starts to shine.
Wrong: Progression
Things Sea of Thieves Gets Right and Wrong
While the lack of a substantial progression system keeps gameplay fair between players and forces people to focus on playing for pure fun, it may be a big turn off for some, as there are no upgrades to the game beyond cosmetic ones.
There’s nothing wrong with cosmetic items, but when they’re the only thing to work toward, and the ways to get gold in the game aren’t all that diversified, it can feel like a grind. This is especially true with the cosmetic items for ships, which can cost more than 100,000 gold each. This will certainly make these cosmetics rare, especially in the weeks immediately after release, but for some, it may not seem worthwhile to grind for so long for something that won’t make you a more powerful pirate, or change the gameplay experience.
