Happy New Year, everyone! We’re back working hard on Sea of Thieves after the holidays and a December chock-full of announcements. We revealed March 20 as our launch date and made a star of an unsuspecting chicken with a swashbuckling trailer, kicked off pre-orders, revealed how you progress through the world of Sea of Thieves, and showed off our haunting Limited Edition controller. All that and we hosted our biggest ever Technical Alpha play session last month.
All hands are now back on deck here at Rare as we sail toward launch. We’ll have plenty to share, show off and celebrate before then, but we’re beginning 2018 with the announcement of our upcoming Closed Beta dates.
The Sea of Thieves Closed Beta will run from 12 p.m. GMT on January 24 to 8 a.m. GMT on January 29 (4 a.m. PST on January 24 to 12 a.m. PST on January 29), which gives pirates a full five days of sailing, shanties and shenanigans. We’ve crafted a bespoke experience for Closed Beta players that offers a true taste of the pirate life and a great chance to get your sea legs ahead of March 20! We won’t be testing the full game during this Closed Beta phase: we want to keep a good selection of things up our sleeves for players to discover at launch. So get your calendars out and get those dates pencilled in!
The Sea of Thieves Closed Beta will be accessible to anyone who joined the Sea of Thieves Insider Programme before December 1, 2017, and anyone who pre-orders the game. If you’ve already pre-ordered the game and want to find out how to download the Closed Beta client, visit our website.
One final thing: the Closed Beta will not be covered by an NDA, so players can stream, create videos, share clips, take screenshots or do anything else that their wonderful minds can come up with. Some of our favourites will no doubt be shared on Sea of Thieves’ social channels and website. I know a lot of players will be excited by this announcement – I am too! If you missed out on the Insider Programme, pre-order now to ensure access to the Closed Beta!
Want to be among the first to know when we have more news to share? Make sure you follow us on social media and keep an eye on Xbox Wire and the official Sea of Thieves site.
Ahoy there Pirates old and new, welcome to the Sea of Thieves Closed Beta! First things first, there is...
No NDA for Closed Beta!
So stream, capture, share all your wonderful adventures, #BeMorePirate!
Download size:
Xbox One: 7.40GB
Windows 10: 13.30GB
While the full game will have more Trading Companies looking to make their mark in the Sea of Thieves, our Closed Beta will focus on the Gold Hoarders, to give a taste of what is to come!
Progression & Economy Updates
Based on player feedback, we have made the following changes:
Longer Voyages - Voyages now take you further afield, and encourage exploration of the wider seas.
Economy Balancing - Shop prices have been doubled in line with increased rewards.
Cursed Chests - More! We've increased the number of Cursed Treasure Chests in the world, let us know if you think this is too many, or still too little.
Treasure Chests Renamed -
Castaway’s Chest was Treasure Chest
Seafarer’s Chest was Rare Treasure Chest
Marauder’s Chest wasLegendary Treasure Chest
Captain’s Chest was Mythical Treasure Chest
Features
Make Friends Emote - Let's be friends! Activate the 'Make Friends' emote with another player to become friends in Xbox Live!
World Map Pins - Make it clearer than ever where you're going by placing a pin on the world map for the rest of your crew to view.
World Map Ship Trail - Took a wrong turn? Now you'll be able to see where your ship has travelled by looking at your ship trail on the world map.
Ship Visibility - Keep your eye on the horizon! Ships are now visible from further afar, will you fight or flee?
Weapon Focus - When using projectile weapons, aiming down the sights will cause the surrounding area to show a slight blur to help you focus on your target.
Cannon Loading Context - Every time you interact with a cannon, your equipped item will change to a cannonball. Now you can man your cannons more efficiently!
Compass Spins in Storm - Navigating in the Storms just got harder! Pirates will have to trust their eye, and on their compass not rely!
Equippable Items
Spyglass - Bet you didn't see this coming! Seeing is believing! Look what what arrived in the See of Thieves! Find it in your inventory. I regret nothing.
Eye Of Reach - Now it's never been more valuable to have a set of eyes in the crows nest. The Eye of Reach is the first long distance scoped weapon in the Sea of Thieves.
Bilge Rat Clothing - What was once brown is now green!
Island Updates
Gunpowder Barrels – Here comes the BOOM! Gunpowder barrels are now available on Islands. You can pick them up, blow them up or use them as traps.
Skeleton Rebalance - We've made some changes to the skeletons, let us know how they feel now.
Player Settings
Dynamic Keybinding - When rebinding controls on keyboard, mouse or controller, you can now press the button you want to bind an action to. Simple!
Windows 10 PC Specific Settings
Make sure you have installed the latest drivers for your graphics cards.
PC Walk - Now players can walk by pressing ‘Left Control’, important for sneaking up on skeletons!"
Played this alone and with Monkey Man and while it was great fun, it oddly has less to do than in the Alpha's. Maybe they'll unlock the other quest lines during the Beta but just having treasure to find gets old quickly if you can't change it up. I snuck aboard an enemy big ship and killed a guy then eventually got killed myself. Thing was when I spawned on ship other team was on it waiting for me, meaning I had to quit. They should alternate spawn to different part of the ship other than captains quarters when this happens.
Really though as a crew of 4 you should destroy all the smaller ships which is understandable but kinda annoying as you need to get away fast. That said a well organised 2 some could go someway to beating a big ship.
Photek wrote:it oddly has less to do than in the Alpha's.
Glad you mentioned this because I was watching Pedz stream last night and whilst it looked like an enjoyable enough distraction to play with friends I really struggled to see much beyond that. Was still fun to see him get eaten by sharks though.
Really hope this does well, I’m not entirely sure what you do in this yet but it’s feeling like a Rare game (surprisingly) and that is meant as a huge compliment.
It’s the type of game that makes me miss the Xbox brand. Let’s see the promises of Spencer and we see many more exclusives.
The reports of there not being much to do are concerning, though. I kinda hoped that there’d be a bit of progression in the beta so you’d get an idea of what you actually do in the main game apart from just roaming the seas finding loot and fighting other players...
Played it alone last night on my own ship (you can be matchmade into bigger crews) Had a very hard riddle and spent about 30mins on and island solving it, some ships passed by but my ship was well hidden so I had 2 in game days and nights on the island and it's all so gorgeous that I really enjoyed myself. I found 3 Chests in the end including a cursed one that cries (and floods the ship every few minutes so have to bail the water).
Made my way to the nearest outpost because of the cursed chest and hit a storm, It was a terrible mistake. However, the storm, and effects and lightning and the sea surge was one of the most impressive things I've seen in a game possibly ever, the sound was deafening and my ship eventually sank the wind howling then the muffled silence under the water as I looked down at my ship fade into the blackness followed by a shark attack... stunning stuff.