2022 Will Be 'The Biggest Year Yet' For Sea Of Thieves

During the GQ interview, it was announced that Sea of Thieves had grown to over 25m players...

Craig Duncan (Studio Head at Rare) remembers turning to Spencer and asking the big question:

“If every single person plays Sea Of Thieves on Game Pass, and we don’t sell a single copy. Are you kind of cool with that?’”

Spencer was categorical.

“Absolutely.”

In the end, Sea Of Thieves had a great launch, people still bought it and it was heralded as Rare’s return to form. But more importantly, it proved Game Pass could work. The economics were “100 per cent a success,” says Bond. Xbox’s business model transformed. Since then, every single Xbox Game Studios game, no matter the size or budget, has been released, day one, onto the service. Major publishers such as Electronic Arts, makers of FIFA, have partnered with Xbox Game Pass too. The 18 million subscribers spend 50 per cent more than non-subscribers. A game’s average engagement goes up eight times when added to Game Pass. And player experimentation within genres dramatically increases. Three years after release, Sea Of Thieves just passed 25 million players, and that continues to grow.

“Even today,” Duncan says, smiling.

Of course, this was before the A/B deal and the over 25m Subscribers we know of today...

The only Rare news I'm waiting for is the rumoured re release of Goldeneye 007. I get that Sea of Thieves has a large following but it's not my cup of tea. Still hoping Rare go back to their Single Player days

I am very excited. SoT is one of those games that is nice to jump into every update.

Used to play every weekend with my brother and niece. Loved every second of it. Unfortunately commitments change and we can no longer play as regular. I still think SoT is the best exclusive title Xbox owns, just my opinion of course. I will say it's hell to play solo though🤣

My wife and I have played some pretty intense co-op titles over the years. Games like Overcooked, ect. Sea of Thieves was the one that broke us, lol. "Turn left! LEFT!" crash "What are you doin!?" "I was turning left!" "No you weren't, you were going right!!" "Why didn't you lift up off the sails fast enough?" "I told you not to pull them down that far, I can't see!" lol.

I would really enjoy it more if there was a server you could go play on and not get ganked every 2 mins.

That and that alone turned me off playing the game. Same reason I never go into the dark zone in the division. Ganked not enjoyable.

@Medic_Alert To begin and quit within a few hours (or less) is probably so typical that its filtered out.

@Medic_Alert I used "probably" because I wasn't sure of what the context of your question was. The article didn't mention player count.

I’m going to have to give this game another shot. I tried it and didn’t think much of it. Maybe another go and I’ll see what all the fuss is about.

I'm excited to see what they add. I've been playing since, basically, launch. I'll be the first person to say it launched unfinished with the technical mechanics working ok, but no content.

Though since launch they really have been adding loads of great stuff with the recent Pirates of the Caribbean update really outdoing themselves. Sea of Thieves and No Man's Sky are great examples of how a game can really redeem themselves after launch.