Sea of Thieves is one of the most ambitious exclusive games Microsoft has released in quite some time, with an open-ended online structure that lends itself to unexpected antics with fellow pirates. It seems to be quite the hit with Xbox and PC players thus far, and has already amassed more than 2 million players.
“The worldwide excitement for Sea of Thieves has made it the fastest-selling first-party new IP of this generation. Having witnessed more than a million players on launch day, our community continues to grow and now has more than two million players. Alongside this, Sea of Thieves is already the best-selling Microsoft Studios first-party title on Windows 10,” Rare studio head Craig Duncan said in a statement.
It’s unlikely the total game sales for Sea of Thieves is quite as high as its player count. As part of a new Microsoft initiative, the game was made available to Xbox Game Pass subscribers on launch day, giving them full access to the game for just the cost of their normal subscription.
As a game centered on emergent multiplayer experiences, Sea of Thieves players have the ability to run into complete strangers and team up to take on harder challenges, such as Skull Forts. It appears some of them are getting along instead of killing each other, as more than 500,000 new friendships have been started on Xbox Live because of the game. In our experience, we did manage to team up with a few passing pirates, but the urge to murder them in cold blood was sometimes too strong to ignore.
“In addition to its social gameplay that brings people together to create memories and make new friends, one of the things that makes Sea of Thieves so special is how much it is to stream and watch others,” Duncan added. “More than 100,000 players have streamed Sea of Thieves since launch, resulting in more than 10 million hours watched in the last week.”
As basically anything can happen in Sea of Thieves, it offers similar streaming appeal to a game like Minecraft or even No Man’s Sky. You never know when an enormous ship fight will break out, or when you will stumble upon buried treasure.
Sea of Thieves is now available for Xbox One and Windows 10 PC. Through the Xbox Play Anywhere program, buying the game digitally for one platform will automatically unlock the other, as well.
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