When it comes to Sea of Thieves, there are plenty of opinions, both good and bad. I think it’s safe to say that Rare’s pirate-em-up didn’t have the smoothest of launches out there. When the game unexpectedly hit the shelves this March, after some hastily organized beta tests, it quickly came unde🧸r fire for the lack of content and features. Players felt cheated by🎃 the state of the title on release and the torches and pitchforks were quick to appear.

However, since then, Rare has been hard at work on Sea of Thieves and are doing their best to bring the pirating adventure to the state they promised us before the launch. As fo🗹r why that wasn’t done before﷽ releasing their title into the wild, we can only speculate. Some say it was Microsoft that pushed Rare to release an unfinished game, others claim it’s the studio’s own negligence that caused this situation. Knowing how Microsoft likes to keep things to themselves, we’ll probably never know exactly what happened.

Either way, however, it is a fact that Rare are doing their best and they keep improving Sea of Thieves with every update they push to users. A lot has changed in the game and there’s more coming our way. So, with that in mind, let us look at the pirate title of the year once mor🐲e, as there are plenty of reasons for you to give it a second chance. Of course, there 𒀰are also many aspects in which it still feels a bit underwhelming.

20 Try Again: AI Ships Are O🍃n The Horizon

At E3 this year, Rare dropped a brand new trailer, showcasing two of its upcoming updates - Cursed Sails, which landed recently, and Forsaken Shores, which the team is preparing for September. With that, one major feature, which lots of people expected to make it into the game much sooner, got confirmed by the trailer and Rare’s employees in the next few days. And with Cursed Sails we got skeleton ships roaming the Sea of Thieves, and this is what the update is all about. If you ask me, this is a good reason for you to get back on the de🍃ck and prepare for som♔e pirating.

19 Stay Away: Skeleto൩n Cannoneers Need Nerfing

Speaking of AI ships, I cannot help but mention the skeletons manning the cannons on various islands. While they certainly add an intriguing game mechanic for advanced players, I find them to be rather annoying most of the times. It’s💯 not that I dislike their presence there, but I do believe they are a bit too accurate for creatures that lack eyes. I’ve probably taken more damage from them than from enemy crews and I’ve fought plenty of other players. So, I can only hope that the AI crew on skeleton ships will be a little less of a nuisance when it comes to firing their cannons. Otherwise, we all might as well say goodbye to our vessels for good.

18 ♍Try Again: The New Ship Type Is Here

While we’re on the subject of Cursed Sails, I have to admit that the one thing I am 💛most꧃ excited about is the new ship - the Brigantine.

It’s a 2 to 3-man ship to cover that middle ground between the Sloop and the Galleon.

The new ship comes with two masts and two cannons on each side. It is designed for an optimal crew of three people, so even if you cannot find a fourth friend to conquer the seas with,♉ you can still have a viable competitive crew. Honestly, I do believe that this is one of the best new features we've seen from Rare since launch.

17 𒀰 Stay Away: More Ship Customization Is Needed

Ship customization right now offers plenty of options. However, players are still locked to choosing from predefined sails, hulls, an🐷d figureheads. While I can certainly understand why Rare has gone tওhis way instead of allowing people to freely design their own, certain aspects of ship customization could be expanded on. Let’s take the flags, for example.

If you look at historical evidence, you will fi🐈nd that each pirate had their own flag, which acted as their signature.

So, I think players should have the ability to design their own flags to fly on top of the mast. After all, if we a💝re forging our own pirate legend, we might as well do it with our own touch on it.

16 Try Again: Freedom Is The Key Wo꧂rd

While we’re on the subject of “choose-your-own-adventure,” let’s take a look at the biggest selling point of the game - its core concept. While a lot of people complained about the lack of content (and some of them - rightly so), the majority of the criticism came from players that didn’t comprehend the basic idea of Sea of Thieves.

It is not about the loot, the AI threats, and how cool your ship will look.

When it comes to the brass tacks, the title is all about your choicꦓes and the freedom to do as you please in a vast sea that is yours for the taking. That’s the whole meaning of the #BeMorePirate hashtag that’s become a staple of Rare’♎s social media campaigns.

15 Stay Aw🍎ay: Griefers (Sadly) Still Exist

I think we already established that the Sea of Thieves community is awesome. It’s tight-knit, it’s mostly friendly, and most people do not take it personally when their ship is sunk and their booty - stolen. After all, that’s what the game is all about, right? But, surely, most people would not attack an empty ship, just to get some cheap laughs by watching it sink to the bottom of the sea, right? Well, wrong. In fact, often you will find that other crews do not attack you for your loot, they will not even check if yo🐟u have loot. They just want to make you feel miserable by having to respawn over, and over, and over again.

14 🉐 Try Again: Cheaters Are Nearly Nไon-Existent

I’ve played plenty of Sea of Thieves and never have I met a single cheater. When it comes to Rare’s pirate title, cheaters are those elusive mythical beasts that we have all heard of, but no one has ever met. Sure, Rare did acknowledge that some people did manage to cheat at some point, but they were swiftly dealt with and this will continue to be the case in the future. Rare, just like Microsoft, do not take lightly to people exploiting their software, so quick and harsh bans are their answer to any cheating they manage to detect. Thankfully, this means that Sea of Thieves is quite 𝓰clean of such nasty and disgraceful♔ acts.

13 Stay Away: Microtransaction﷽s Will Soon Be A Thing

Now, the reason why Rare staff is putting in that extra effort (or at least one of th💝e many, many reasons) is that we have all paid a fixed price for the game and we expect some support in return. However, the landscape is soon about to change, as microtransactions will soon be introduced. Of course, they will not alter the gameplay in any way and the only confirmed items for the real-money store are cosmetic pets, so we are not about to get a pay-to-win title. And yet, I can’t help but wonder how that will affect the community, despite it being the only sensible way to pay for the server maintenance.

12 Try Again: New Adventures Every T🌠wo Weeks

While we’re talkไing about microtransactions, allow me to mention the new so-called Bilge Rat Adventures. Those are bi-weekly events that grant you a special currency if you manage to complete specific “achievements” of sorts. A lot of people thought that they are just paving the way for a premium currency, but Rare made sure to let the players know that this is not the case. In fact, Bilge Rat Adventures and the doubloons they grant are just one more addition to the game, giving us something new to do every couple of weeks. So, not only are Rare always adding new content, but we’re also incentivized to interact with it as much as possible.

11 Stay Away: The Sunken Curse Is A Bit Disapp🐻ointing 𓃲

One of the new Bilge Rat Adventures is the Sunken Curse. And before it was released, Rare made sure to hype it as a brand new activity that will make us go dee🧸per into the open waters and explꦗore what’s beneath the choppy surface of the sea. Naturally, everyone thought that a new enemy, maybe some sort of merpeople, were going to make an appearance. Unfortunately, it turned out that it was just some statues that we had to beat into submission. Sure, a big update came very soon after this Bilge Rats Adventure, but in my opinion, the Sunken Curse was just lazy, if anything.