I just can't recommend this game right now.
For context, while ik it says I've only played for 24 hours, thats only on my steam account. Originally I started playing all the way back in 2018 for week one on my xbox 1 and have played relatively consistently since then, even swapping to the xbox series x just so I could continue to play the game. I swapped over to steam not too long ago after I cancelled my gamepass subscription. Needless to say, I've spent well over a thousand hours on this game.
This game used to genuinely be my favorite and was so for years. I remember how chaotic it was when the game had just first came out. The community was trying to figure out which voyages were the funnest, the best ways to beat skeleton forts, and how to PvP properly. While it was pretty boring up until about the first anniversary update when new food types were added, tall tales became a thing, arena (rip) was added which all made the game super multifaceted, I still really enjoyed the first year. I remember when we first got the megalodon in the first ever major update and you had to summon it but only by cooperating with other pirate crews. I remember when cursed sails added new npc ships you could fight in the world. I remember when the rare did what seemed like the impossible and added a whole new region with the devil's roar, a volcano-themed region that was more unforgiving but had much better and unique loot that then original three regions.
I talk about the first year of the game because sot had a rough launch. People would play, find it boring, and leave. Only some players stayed around outside of the major updates before the anniversary update came out. But SoT survived because the beating heart of this game is its dedicated community. This feels relevant now because here we are 8 years later and it feels dead again, but now not even the updates feel like they bring life back into the game. Back in 2018, it felt like the game was ambitious and loved by its developers, and I still somewhat believe rare still cares, but it also feels like back then they actually knew their community but now they feel out of touch. Year 1 and most of the years following, it felt like rare really understood that there was a symbiotic relationship between those who mained PvE and PvP. In other words, you had people who primarily preferred doing voyages and just kind of doing their own thing on the seas (like me) and people who preferred to play the game mostly by fighting others or focusing on world events (events where rather than just one crew being able to participate like regular voyages, all crews can hone in on the specific event and fight together or against one another for relatively good loot). Rare was really good at balancing rewarding both communities with good updates while not isolating one from the other to maintain a good community balance. I mean sure, you had the Arena which was a PvP-exclusive gamemode, but unlike modern PvP updates it still prioritzed team work (originally only galleons were allowed in the Arena, which meant you and to cooperate with 3 other crew members to win against the other ships in the match) and also the Anniversary Update as previously mentioned still had plenty of goodies for the main open world gamemode, like fishing, cooking, and the tall tales which were more PvE oriented. Another example was the emissary update, an overhaul to the trading companies (the people who you get and do voyages for) which added more incentives like earnable experience and gold multipliers that made the grind for Pirate Legend (the game's "end game" reward) easier to help boost the PvE side, but also added the Reaper's Bones, a PvP-oriented (but not exclusive) faction that was incentivized to hunt down and plunder the PvE crowd. It overall was an organic way of keeping both groups in contact. Rare has done this plenty of times over, making updates that reward both crowds to both do their own thing and to organically interact with each other.
All of this made the community bustling for years. Sure, you had some toxic folk, but generally both sides lived in an effective harmony. PvE players would grind the game by doing voyages. Voyages created loot like chests which would circulate in the game. Loot incentivized PvP players to strategically attack PvE players for their loot so they instead could profit, or to form an alliance with and protect PvE players so they could get a share of the money earned. If the PvE player lost their things, then they would go back and fight the PvP players after respawning, or vice versa if the PvE player won and was able to cash their loot in. In either case, it made a healthy ecosystem where there existed opportunities for both groups to have fun in their respective way, but also in one which meant both groups were still interacting, making for one big and cohesive community. This created fun, awesome stories that make up the back bone of SoT.
That was until updates started isolating the two groups. Sea of Thieves would start adding more Tall Tales without any incentive for PvP to happen organically, which meant part of the PvE community would stop interacting with the PvP community. On the flip side, updates created more world events that exclusively focused on the PvP aspect of the game, meaning that most PvE players would stop doing world events, leading to less interaction. Ultimately, SoT added both diving and replaced Arena mode with hourglass, which were like gamemodes within the main open seas world where the former allowed you teleport to voyages automatically if your were a PvE player and the later would automatically teleport you to someone who wanted PvP if thats what you desired. Not to mention, both teleported you to new servers rather than keeping you on the same one the whole time. What this created were exclusive missions of sorts that all but ensured that you would no longer organically interact with the other community except for in isolated cases. Now I'm not necessarily saying that both updates killed the game, after all they certainly are time savers which means you can get more missions/fights into a single play session than before, but the reality is that the time cut out was the time where either community could organically interact since you're teleporting to events, not sailing to them.
Don't get me wrong, as a PvE main I love being able to dive. Means I can get more money and reputation (experience) an hour than ever before, but it means that I almost never get into PvP interactions anymore unless I go out of my way to do so, which defeats the purpose of emergent encounters with other players that make those awesome stories.
The final nail in the coffin for me is that the game does get updated still, but unlike maybe four years ago when each update was fun and refreshing, recent updates (so like the past 2 or 3 years) have been nothing short of underwhelming. The developer team keeps running into problems which means that updates get pushed back ridiculously far, content is cut, or otherwise regular content updates get replaced with bug fixes. What this has created is a community expectation of underperformance. In other words, I don't look forward to updates anymore because I always assume they'll flop in some way. This has outright killed the community.
TL;DR, sorry for the rant. I've had years to think about this and I finally wanted to leave a review. Stunning graphics, potential for a fun time, but the community feels dead and the new content feels lackluster. Plenty of content in the game for those who want to try it out, but the lack of a community will make it boring fast. I have hopes that this game can get back on track, but I right now I can't in good faith recommend playing it, especially for the price it's at right now. Maybe get it on sale, but even then I don't recommend. Come back and see if the game is alive again in like a year or so. Thanks for reading.
