Sea of Thieves Review - Is This the Return of Classic Rare? | Gaming Instincts

Leonid Melikhov: Sea of Thieves is finally here and is it the triumphant return for Rare? Find out what we have to say about Rare's latest new pirate-themed IP and see where it stands among their other amazing games of the past.

[DigitalRaptor]

"Is This the Return of Classic Rare?"

Sadly, not.

[G3ng4r]

Yeah, that rare died late into the n64's life before microsoft bought them. Current rare sadly has fallen below even current bioware. Hard to believe this was the company that helped squaresoft keep snes relevant against 32-bit consoles.

[G3ng4r]

That's a great response, lildoodoo. Thank you.

[Sayai jin]

Agreed.

[PhoenixUp]

Is that a serious question

[fonger08]

People on N4G in a nutshell:
N4G: it’s devoid of content
People playing it: yep but having fun
N4G: it’s extremely repetitive
People playing it: yep still having fun
N4G: jumping up and down* stop having fun!!

[wvxc1995]

I persoanlly enjoyed this game a lot and still do duos with people and my friends. We believe that 7.5 is a fair score - its a good game with great foundation and potential but unfortunately 4 years of development and this little of content is not a very good thing. However, we do believe the hyperbole is real and too many are hating it for reasons that they shouldn't. There is a lot of good in this game but most try like to just follow the herd,

[fonger08]

I definitely agree. I think a 7-8 is fair, definitely not a game for those who like single player adventures. But a few friends and a few drinks and the game is a blast. But reviews scores here are essentially:
PS4 exclusives: >9 the reviewers are biased and junk
Nintendo: <8 the reviewers are biased and paid off
Xbox exclusives: <7, >9 it’s a bomb worst game of all time Microsoft is dead.

[Concertoine]

I agree, i think SoT offers a multiplayer experience that is more or less all its own. The paranoia you feel when delivering stronghold loot is unmatched, and not for everyone. Me and a buddy in a sloop outsmarted a galleon while battling skeletons at a fort at the same time, then they managed to make off with the stornghold loot with us tailing them, only for the kraken to drag them down.

I like the way the game doesn't tell you anything - every ship i join has some knowledge to pass down to me about how to beat certain skeletons or what happens when you beat the kraken 3 times, etc.

I see the game being compared to No Man's Sky and that is just not giving the game enough credit. NMS was made by 10 people, also 60 dollars and launched missing promised features, crashing, the devs actively lied about that game, there were no quests or multiplayer or anything to do but fly and hold down the trigger to mine. And it also has a 71 on metacritic.

[IamTylerDurden1]

fonger08

The scores are out, it's a 65. It is a disappointment. https://opencritic.com/game...

[fonger08]

@concertoine last night we ran into a “rival” ship. We got destroyed probably by the most efficient team of... well anyone... I had ever seen. It was pretty intense but once we all got back together, we were all like, “dang that was just impressive and well executed..” Only to have a couple more late hours of fun building up our stockpile again.

I must have been one the few that enjoyed NMS when it launched. I guess I just never got caught up in the hype and all of the “supposed” features it was going to have. I just wanted to get out explore space knowing that I would probably the only ever to see or walk on this specific planet. That’s a pretty unique experience.
With SoT I never really had high expectations. A couple guys I know from college bought it and we enjoy the core concept of getting out there, exploring and F’ing around on pirate playground. It’s just, fun.

[aconnellan]

@tyler

Oh okay, our mistake, I guess Fonger will now lower his opinion of the game to match the meta score /s

Why does it matter what score it got if people are enjoying it?

[slate91]

People of n4g will insult and downvote you if you go against their religious beliefs.

[fonger08]

Oh I know. It’s fun to pick on this site’s over top ridiculousness sometimes.

[IamTylerDurden1]

It's the fact that fonger was acting as if people on N4G were misrepresenting the reviews. The game isn't scoring well and there is a large amount of criticism towards the game. It's not an N4G thing, not just fan boys, it's all over the Internet. You can enjoy it, some do, but the general consensus is disappointment, whereas Fonger08 seems to be saying it is simply an anti Microsoft bias. That is bs, No Man's Sky has better Meta scores than Sea of Thieves yet it was trolled harder and longer.

[FinalFantasyFanatic]

@iamtylerdurden1, scores seem to be all over the place.

[fonger08]

@IamTylerDurden1 oh please, do yourself a favor and read my comments. No where did I say that this game was some sort of masterpiece or even condemn anyone reviewer like so many of the kids on this site do for so many many games they’ve never played nor intend to. Because you review hawk fanboys want a numerical score to dictate what’s, good, fun, bad, or broken to other people, should absolutely be made light of in a joke.

[bluefox755]

Do you have the data of how many people are playing it and having fun? Tons of people tried it for free with gamepass, but how can you possibly know how many of those people are enjoying it and not just trying out?

[fonger08]

Huh? How did you get that I have data on how many people are playing it? This is actually a copied meme from the Sea of Thieves subreddit that’s actually quite popular and pretty accurate, especially from the groups/teams of people playing it together vs those that are not.

[wvxc1995]

Too many? :P

[AspiringProGenji]

No one is telling you to stop having fun, but fun won't fix this game and its poor state. In the end that fun will get old when people finally realize the game's limitations, and will move on.

NO ma's Sky was fun when leaving the very first planet and landing the first 5-10 planets until you realize you were lading on the same planets with slight changes over and over

[fonger08]

Personally I liked No Mans Sky. The only real issue I had with it was not taking my time to enjoy the aspect that while yes most planets did feel the same, you possibly will never land on planet that someone else has. I just rushed it and got to the center of galaxy... which was most definitely a let down.

[darthv72]

And to think... if NMS had multiplayer it could have been more fun.

[rainslacker]

NMS interesting part was the sense of discovery, and ultimately, the end which you were trying to get to. SoT is just repetative, with different level designs for what amounts to essentially the same content. Not that I'd say one is better than the other, and you are right, that it can get boring fast if the variety isn't there, or there is no purpose.

As far as being fun with friends....sure, I can do lots of things that are fun with friends. But if I went bowling with my friends every night, I'd soon grow tired of bowling every night, and eventually want to go play pool instead.

Best allegory I can think of is the Wii craze. It was a lot of fun in that it brought a lot of people into gaming, and families and friends who don't game were suddenly playing together. The games were shallow though, and while fun, the larger user base grew tired of partaking in the games. Hardcore gamers may stick it out for a bit longer, but hardcore gamers can be fickle, and will always want new experiences. Even the people on here saying how fun it is, and how much fun it is with friends, will want to move onto other things, because they're the kinds of gamers who don't play most games endlessly.

[yomfweeee]

Except for all the reviews say the same thing and most are mediocre scores. Don't make it a N4G thing.

You think a game with nothing to do will stay fun?

[fonger08]

The “nothing to do” argument is poorly based and bit of hyperbole at this point. Also it extremely rare that literally any a game “stays” fun. No one is saying this game is a classic or will go down as something you’ll love 10yrs down the road. But it’s a pretty fun game to play with a group of friends, for which the most part, is how this game was intended to be played.

[Gunstar75]

I've played for just over 20 hours and have learnt many lessons. Most people bitching about the game haven't played it. We had a 4 man crew (well, 3 men 1 woman) and we spent the best part of an hour trying to lose a small ship that was determined to sink us. We had a lot of loot on board that had taken is two hours to accumulate. To say it was tense is an understatement. I've got a stress headache.
It was f++king brilliant

This is just my opinion. A gamer of over 35 years but what the f++k do I know hahahah

[Prubar]

Lol so true. People also made fun of evolve and bashed anyone who legitimately enjoyed it. I played that game for months on end and hopefully I will for Sea of thieves as well.

[OffRoadKing]

Its not just people on N4G its actual people who have played and reviewed the game. But please keep telling us how fun empty repetition is.

[darthv72]

If you are referring to user reviews on MC.... you know those can be fake right?

If you think every one of those is 100% legit then you must be new to this. But keep telling us how people that say its fun are wrong.

[notachance]

dang darth, if only you have the same logic for every PS4 game you dissed

[fonger08]

Please keep on being the perfect example of the joke above.

[darthv72]

"Every ps4 game I've dissed"... i criticized nms because of lack of multiplayer and gts for not being gt7 and focusing more on mp than sp like all previous gt games have been known for.

Yeah thats really "dissing" things. Any other game that does not appeal to me I tend to stay out of threads about. And that goes for all platforms.

[notachance]

so why defend this one and criticise the other though, they all have obvious flaws that warrant your criticism aren't they? yet all you do with this one is defend it to high hell

or do you filter which one you defend and which one you criticise by PLATFORM, is that it?

[IamTylerDurden1]

Yet user reviews are even worse than critic reviews on Metacritic and Open Critic.

Sea of Thieves has a worse Metacritic and Open Critic score than No Man's Sky.

Sea of Thieves is a 65 Open Critic, 70 Metacritic.

The amount of content doesn't seem worth $60.

The game is turning into Xbox's version of No Man's Sky perception wise. It was not the game that it was hyped to be and it is lacking in many areas. There will be some who enjoy it, i enjoyed No Man's Sky to an extent, but overall the game is getting slammed and that's just fact.

[OffRoadKing]

Only its not a joke as much as its fanboys like you working through their salty feelings because the game did poorly. You should move on, looks like Far Cry is getting actual good reviews.

[fonger08]

You keep on checking those review scores to tell you what’s fun my man lol. I’ll let the actual gameplay experience do the talking.

[OffRoadKing]

Would appear you're doing more talking than the game is, then again I guess it doesn't have much to say.

[rainslacker]

So all those reviewers saying it's also devoid of content are wrong too?

Fun fact. Most of the reviewers say it's fun too. But being fun doesn't mean it's not devoid of content. Maybe recognize the difference between fun and content, because lots of content isn't necessarily fun. Plenty of mobile games can be lots of fun, but often have very little content. However, with most of those, they aren't $60 games that were hyped up for years as something that was going to be a major IP.

For an MMO to be thin on content, it usually means it's not going to keep people engaged. It could have all the right elements, but if they're repetitive or slim in variety, then I wouldn't expect it to last very long.

The game has been out for less than a week. I think it would be hard to gauge how quickly something would get boring in that time. But having played enough MMO's in my time, I can tell you that the one's that had slim content usually didn't hold my interest very long, and the user base tended to degrade quickly.

[AspiringProGenji]

This just like Evolve and how the people who fell for the hype were convincing themselves the game was good with friends. Then the novelty wore off and you know what happened next...

[OffRoadKing]

The same reviewers have also said that it has the same three or four missions that you repeat over and over and over again, its repetition and that doesn't sound like fun. I think you can easily gauge rather a game is fun or not in less than a week but I think when you have little content to talk about and a game that's essentially getting poor reviews across the bored people turn to the "but its fun" argument because fun is subjective and you dont have to back it up with any facts. I'll say it again, its fine to give someone a sandbox with nothing but sand in it and tell them here try to have fun, its something else entirely to sell them that sandbox for $60.

[rainslacker]

I think for an MMO you have to give a reasonable amount of play time before reviewing it. But at the same time, if there is no promise of more to come after the initial grind in say 20-30 hours, then it'd be really hard to say that the content isn't sparse when that time played is only showing the repetitive stuff.

Things like WOW have a lot of repetitive type quests, but they are varied enough in location and purpose, not to mention story if you care about such things, that it doesn't always feel like you're just doing more of the same. On top of that you absolutely know that you're going to have end game content which is different and more challenging....although it may be sometimes structured in the same way of what you're currently doing. Furthermore, even within all that repetative busy work, there are enough unique things to do which are completely different to what you've done before....not to mention that those repetative quests can still bring about some of the unexpected which is what's used by some SoT fans to say why the game is so much fun.

SOT seems to only have some vague promise of better things to come when you become a legendary pirate....or Rare graces the game with content updates. But nothing that I've read so far, or watched for game play stuff, seems to indicate something grander in the end game design. It really seems like that end game is just harder versions of the same things you do in the rest of the game....oh, and there's a kraken which is probably cool the first one or two times.

[Doughhead]

We got jacked last night, lost our ship to a better team...oh well, guess we learned from our mistake by laughing. I'm sure it will happen again....A 7-8 is a fair score. Hell I would have bought it at a 6-7 because I loved the beta.

[j15reed]

Don't forget that it's actually doing quite well and thats just hard to understand for some people.

[Z501]

I was with you til the end. "stop having fun"
Show link/source to N4G comments to where that's even implied.
*I've been here since 2007. I've never seen it.

[Aenea]

Reminds me a lot of No Man's Sky really, lots of people complaining about it in. every. single. article., yet I was enjoying myself and platinumed it. Funny thing is tho that most people negatively talking about NMS were fervent Xbox fans, now tho, they are nowhere to be seen, weird that...

[MarineLineman]

Return? Don’t dare even imply that. Anyone, who thinks this joke of a game is a return to form, is just a kid who’s new to gaming and has not a clue who Rare was back in the 90’s and beyond.

[Gunstar75]

Please. I've been playing Rare games since Saberwulf and this is a good game.

It's not for everyone and deffo not for those with no friends ...err..hmmmm...you, probably

[mcstorm]

I'm with you on this. I tried terribly game Thursday night and I was a little unsure as I played it with 4 ramdom people on live who did not chat and were not sure on what they were doing. I then played it with my brother on the small ship and got to grips with the game and thought it has potential I then played lastnight with 4 friends on a gallion and it was for me as much fun as playing something like Mario Kart as we worked with each other and were sneeky at times when we can across 2 ships fighting just waiting in the background for one to sink the other and then attack the winning ship to get both ships chests. For me this is one of the most fun coop game Ive played in a long time it's not perfect but with the right people it's alot of fun. But it's also not for everyone jutting like i dont like games like gta or rdr.

[Xenophon_York]

Kind of fascinating the more time that goes by the more that level-headed gamers are getting bored of even just stories about Sea of Thieves. It's to the point that mainly only extremist fans of the game are sticking around to vote up/down comments.

[darthv72]

This be true of all games with polarizing views.

[OffRoadKing]

Oh so now all of a sudden metacritic reviews can be fake, well that explains The Orders low score, in fact it must explain every low score for all Playstation games right? I mean whats good for the goose as they say. Thanks for clearing that up for us. Calling reviews "fake" cause its in direct contrast to your "fun" narrative, you sure you're not new to this? I'm sure you are having fun though Darth its just when it comes to xbox its fans have had to redefine what fun is so now even a game that has been universally described as empty boring and repetitive can be classified as fun for you. FYI I wasn't referring to user reviews, the critic reviews made my point for me.

[Xenophon_York]

@darthv72 Agreed. This game certainly is garnering a heaping serving more media attention than most, though. Of course, that's mainly just due to how badly XBOX needed it to be a homerun.

[darthv72]

Offroad... why keep bringing up the order in response to me? I like that game and yeah the reviews werent kind but that did not stop me from playing it and finding out for myself that I liked it.

It seems you liked it too so then why not give SoT the same courtesy and play it as well? Then come to your own conclusion.

[OffRoadKing]

I was making a point about the hypocrisy of people and their reliance on metacritic when reviews go their way but then denounce them as fake when they dont, it wasn't personally aimed at you necessarily. Look I dont have to run with the bulls to know I wouldn't have fun doing it, theirs enough information for me to extrapolate rather I think SOT is a guilty game based on not only reviews but twitch streams, lets plays and any other number of videos out there and literally everything I've seen shows a repetitive and boring game and I dont know how one gets fun out of repetitive and boring but if that's something you're able to magically make happen then by all means man you enjoy. As far as I'm concerned the game doesn't look at all worth the asking price and certainly is no where near what everyone was trying to hype it up to be that's all.

[IamTylerDurden1]

It's the Xbox's version of No Man's Sky, expect even more negative articles.

[paintedgamer1984]

This game deserves no higher than its meta of 7.0

http://www.metacritic.com/g...

I also highly disagree with this game being an rpg... if its an rpg its the most bare bones rpg ive ever played period.

[wvxc1995]

I don't think anyone ever classaified this game as an RPG dude.. where did you get that from?

[paintedgamer1984]

For one, metacritic has it listed as an rpg... dude

[Gunstar75]

It's a PVP game.

[Godmars290]

Rare is dead and someone else is wearing it's skin.

Goodnight Everybody!

[darthv72]

Rare has been grabbed by the ghoulies... get it? 😉

[IamTylerDurden1]

Unfortunately Rare appears to be a different company nowadays. They lost key members and are basically just living off their name at this point.

[wvxc1995]

I am hearing they're making 2 more new IPs....assuming they're not gonna get ditched by MS after this we will see what happens..

[Tross]

A critical and commercial flop is the long awaited return to form of a dev who was known for pushing the envelope, and getting 9s and 10s instead of the 7.5 this author posted to contradict the question just asked by effectively answering it? If you say so.

[leftstrummer]

Ok... what?

[Ausbo]

Hopefully this game gets the for honor and siege treatment.

[wvxc1995]

Agreed