In spite of the overwhelmingly negative critical reception Sea of Thieves got, it looks like it had a successful launch for Rae regardless- who are now doubling down on providing content to the game at a steady stream. Which is good, because the primary reason reviews were so negative for the game to begin with was the complete lack and utter paucity of content in it.
“Ultimately we’ve had a successful launch of Sea of Thieves,” said executive Producer Joe Neate in an interview with WindowsCentral. “Getting more players than we expected. We took a little time getting the servers stabilized and so on. We came out of the gate strong, and now, our opportunity and focus is making Sea of Thieves a success longer term. Let’s keep acquiring new players, let’s engage the players that have played. We’re doubling down, tripling down on the number of people working on the game, the amount of content we want to add. We hear the feedback, we’ve talked openly I think regarding top feedback points, addressing private, closed crews and so on.
“We hear the content criticism. People had fun, but they want more, and that’s cool. We’re going all-in on adding awesome stuff for Sea of Thieves. That’s almost our motto across the team. We sat down just yesterday with the team building The Hungering Deep talking about what they want to add next. Everything that we do internally, both in terms of how we set our team structure, and how we look at our workflow, is about delivering stuff to players as quickly as possible. That’s the mantra within the studio. Our motivation aligns with player’s motivation.”
He also went on to explain that Rare had split into effectively four teams, all dedicated to supporting the game with a stream of content post-launch. It’s good to hear that Rare has taken the criticism and feedback to heart, too- since there is definitely a core for a great game in Sea of Thieves, Rare just has to build on it with great content to ensure that players stick around to see it.
Sea of Thieves launched in March, exclusively for Windows 10 PCs and Xbox One (also kicking off Microsoft’s Game Pass day and date release initiative); it is available now at retail for $60, or to Game Pass subscribers for no additional price.
