➤ Sea of Thieves Xbox Series X review: a definitive consecration of the Rare game 🎮

And for the Rare title too, the mega update patch has arrived, which results in the Sea of Thieves review for Xbox Series X. How bad we were when, as soon as we received the new console, we rushed to the store to download the Rare game, only to discover that the backwards compatibility did not send it beyond a handful of frames per second, making it in fact unplayable. But with the latest update everything is as it should have been from day one: ultra quality settings and extreme fluidity, for a gaming experience now comparable to that offered by the best PCs around.

A growing success

Sea of Thieves Xbox Series X review: a definitive consecration of the Rare game

For Sea of Thieves, the arrival of the new Microsoft consoles and the consequent increase in subscribers Game Pass equates to an inevitable injection of new players, to which must be added those who decide to buy it weekly on Steam and all those who appreciate the original mechanics since the days of Xbox One.

A success that instead of decreasing, as usually happens to games with several years behind it, is increasing exponentially, together with the contents offered with perfect cadence by the prestigious English development team. Thanks to this new incarnation for next-gen consoles able to make it more beautiful than ever, the time has come not only to go back to talking about it also on the pages of Multiplayer, but above all to review the still firm rating of the unflattering 7.6 initially attributed to it. Not that it was wrong, we are ready to countersign that verdict, but today Sea of Thieves is a totally different beast, while remaining extremely faithful to the original vision.

PVE & PVP

It is not a game for everyone (but which one really is?) But with Sea of Thieves the Rare has managed to bring out from its workshops one of the most original and courageous multiplayer titles of recent years, where the sea water is saltier salt itself thanks to the bitter tears of the players. Here, contrary to what happens in other online experiences, the PVE and PVP they come together in a unique experience, able to go from relaxation guaranteed by Caribbean nothingness to a hell of tropical storms, fireballs darting through the air and curses in all the languages of the world. There are many exceptional results achieved by this game, but the most important is perhaps that of having fully understood and embraced the nature of the purest game as a service. Rare has understood before the other software houses that no content, however complex, can survive in the presence of the bulimia of the players. To solve this age-old problem that can stumble many software houses, the innovations introduced cyclically in Sea of Thieves are mostly composed of new gameplay elements, instead of scraps of adventures destined to always end too soon, to give way again to the waiting for other content.

Maximum interaction

In the three years between us and its April 2017 debut, huge amounts of content, and among these it is also possible to find nine adventures that in fact constitute that story mode that many dreamed of from the beginning. Adventures that moreover do not treat you like a fool, but put on the plate puzzles of a certain level, effectively challenging fights and platforming segments that require a certain amount of commitment and precision. Each story must be completed in a context where other players will always be able to intervene, to put a spoke in the wheels or to help us, to steal all our belongings or for an alliance as precious as it is shaky and dangerous.

Sea of Thieves is a rarity also for the simple fact of allowing us to interact with others using an instrument of rare power and effectiveness: our own voice. Thanks to proximity voice chat, which the more timid can disable, it is possible to negotiate peace with the French by shouting into the megaphone in the waves of the stormy sea, coordinate with novice Spaniards in order to hit hard a particularly aggressive crew, help each other to solve a enigma that will allow us to escape from a room that slowly fills with water ... and these are just three examples among the thousand possible situations that can dynamically arise in this game. Because every session of Sea of Thieves is different from the previous one, and every time you go out to sea you don't know what will happen, or who you will meet. One night you might end up with your friends on a server populated only by aggressive pirates, and the next you may be building new friends by spending hours playing, drinking grog, and subsequently throwing up grog inside a tavern.

A game, a pub

Another courageous aspect to implement, and which has proved to be absolutely successful over time, is the progression totally horizontal of the game. Sea of Thieves is in fact one of the very few online experiences in history where the strongest is the skilled and the shrewd, not those who have more free time available, and can afford to farm days and months in order to get their hands on equipment that normal people couldn't even imagine. In Sea of Thieves there are ships and weapons that are more beautiful, rarer, never more powerful than others. However, even the most experienced players cannot delude themselves into having everything under control because here things can go wrong in an instant: a lightning bolt could set a devastating fire on the ship, another pirate could hide in the hold to communicate your movements to his companions. , A big kraken it could suddenly emerge from the waves to wrap you in its tentacles, a ghost galleon coming out of the thickest mists to attack you with cursed cannon fire.

Or everything can go well, guaranteeing you and your friends an hour or more of pure relaxation, to fish on the placid shores of a silent island, where you can tell stories and play stories with the different musical instruments available, or to chase finally in peace some particularly difficult treasure to find. There is no doubt that Sea of Thives is a game made by an English team: whatever happens, it is always a bit like fooling around in the company of friends among the tables of a pub, where there is lightheartedness, sometimes it bursts some fights, but everyone is always ready to raise their glasses to the sky for another toast. And this atmosphere, you will understand, can only create one of the most close-knit communities around.

Always more beautiful

On Xbox X Series, Sea of Thieves raises the bar even further graphics finally reaching absolute parity with the PC version. In the Xbox One X version the details were already responding almost to their maximum, with 4K resolution too, but everything remained anchored on the classic and sometimes insufficient 30 fps; on the new console we find better lighting effects, an update of the much less visible polygons and above all some wonderful ones 60fps which only rarely present some very brief hiccups. On Xbox One S, the game also reaches the same speed, but limited to 1080p. Thus enhanced, Sea of Thieves can be said graphically absolutely up to what one would expect from the new generation consoles, standing out more and more forcefully as one of the most precious and characterizing exclusives of all those offered by the Microsoft ecosystem. Having it available on Game Pass then reduces excuses to zero: call your friends and download it all together. It might not be the game for you, but it might also turn out to be the game you've been waiting for a lifetime.

Comment

Resources4Gaming.com

9.0

Readers (47)

8.4

Your vote

Like all GAAS, Sea of Thieves also experienced its tragic moment, but unlike many other online games, it was able to find a solution to every problem, slowly emerging as one of the best, if not the best around. . Today, the Rare game offers quality content for every palate: adventures worthy of a single player game, an arena for those who just love to fight, treasures to search for, skeletal guardians to defeat, rare fish to catch and much, much more. A more unique than rare experience capable of attracting players of all sexes and ages, but also the French, and where the French are there is war.