Sea of Thieves

Coming next March is a fun little game called Sea of Thieves, created by RARE.

The game is set in a shared world where you and your friends have your own pirate ship, encountering other groups of players as you complete quests for loot and explore the landscape. Other threats include sharks and undead hordes that protect locations where treasure is, and you are able to board enemy ships to claim their caches of treasure.

The gameplay demo from E3 2017 explains this in more detail:



I've been invited to take part in next week's Technical Alpha during Gamescom, so I'll let you know how it goes.

 

After playing the Sea of Thieves Technical Alpha, I hope to god that Ubisoft's Skull and Bones has its own Beta, and is an extended period of community testing...

The biggest issue right now is co-op play is very difficult to achieve; you either find yourself with fellow newbies in the dark as much as you where nobody co-operates, or veterans who've gotten so tired of explaining what to do, they do what they can to get you to piss off. I realise it is only an alpha, but there doesn't feel like enough of the game's other systems are there, or even a social space to find like-minded people to play with to justify anything beyond bug fixing.

The game has its moments, but only for 5mins at a time out of every 30mins and, to me, that is not fun.

 

So this past week was dedicated to a Closed Beta Test for the game, and there were shenanigans... the first clip catches up with a stream last night from Miisty from Ubisoft, where everyone saw application of the "human Cannonball" mechanic

Watch the right-hand side of the screen carefully 15 seconds in:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/224040243?t=05h35m20s

The next clip then shows the proper application of this approach:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/224040243?t=05h41m50s

And then for some not so professional use of the cannon:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/224040243?t=05h58m25s

Of course with a game developer around, there is no honor among thieves, though the sinking takes about 4mins:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/224040243?t=06h25m

Then, finally, her cat Milly commandeered the stream:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/224040243?t=06h31m25s