Sea of Thieves: What you need to know

Rare and Microsoft's hotly anticipated game is releasing today. The game promises epic adventures for you and your pirate friends in a beautiful world.

You may be thinking about getting Sea of Thieves, but need more information before jumping into it. Let us help shed some light on this epic pirate adventure

Sea of Thieves is a vast, open shared world, meaning that all players share the same persistent game world. The game is obviously built for multiplayer, but can be enjoyed as a single player experience as well. This can be done via the ships.

There are two different ships in the game for now. The Sloop is for single or duo play, while the Galleon is set up for 3 to 4 players. You will have to work the entire ship to set sails on the high seas. You and your friends will need to raise the anchor, set the sails, steer the ship and navigate, all cooperatively. There is no mini map or hud to assist you, just you and your ability to work the ship

Gameplay consists of exploring different islands for treasure and resources, or picking up mission and voyages from the rivalling factions. There are 3 main factions, and completing their increasingly difficult and complex missions and objectives will increase your reputation rank with them. Rank up enough with all three factions, and you may get access to the end game content of pirate legend.

Pirate Legend will give you access to additional areas on the map, secret pirate bases, and additional and more difficult missions to complete. You will also gain legendary gear and fight creatures and bosses of pirate myth.

Don’t worry though, your rank will not keep you from playing with any of your friends. No mission or voyage will be locked behind rank requirements, and any player can join any crew at any time in their journey. Weapons also can’t be upgraded or ranked up. There will be better and different weapons to find on the different islands though.

Sea of Thieves is available on Xbox One and PC, and has full cross-play capabilities. PC and console players can join each other at any time. Sea of Thieves is has also been added to Xbox Game Pass, so if you are a subscriber of the game, you can start playing it immediately. The download sizes differs depending on your platform of choice, with the Xbox One version having a 9.16 GB download, Xbox One X being 18.73 GB and PC at 19.61 GB.