The latest in a series of developer diary videos for Rare’s swashbuckling Xbox One game Sea of Thieves has been released today, this time focusing on the importance of co-op play. Clearly integral to the developer’s vision, multiplayer is incorporated into almost every facet of Sea of Thieves, and what better way to showcase that than with a spot of treasure hunting?
Providing a step by step walkthrough of the activity, senior designers Shelley and Andrew Preston begin by introducing us to the intricacies of commanding and running your own ship across the seven seas. As expected, it’s not quite as simple as one individual performing every role, and players will need to effectively communicate with the rest of their crew in order to get the job done. As an example, the captain, while responsible for maneuvering the vessel, can’t directly look at the world map, with other players having to feed vital information back to captain through word-of-mouth.
Treasure hunting, too, echoes that same sentiment of teamwork, with all players required to take up a shovel and start digging for the spoils below. As a neat touch, you’ll be required to chauffeur the treasure carrier back to the ship, lest you fall foul of those unsavory types that seek to steal your hard-earned loot. You can check out the video for yourselves above.
Sea of Thieves is still without a concrete release date, but if this latest showing is anything to go by, Rare could well be on to a winner with this one. Besides the colorful visual flourish offered by its visuals, all of the multiplayer-focused gameplay elements look like a hoot to experience. We can only hope the issues that caused Rare to delay the title have last year have, by now, been ironed out during the recent technical alpha test.
