Joshua Burley

Sea of Thieves is an Xbox One and Windows 10 exclusive with no currently announced release window, though it is part of Microsoft's Play Anywhere program . Expect more information on Sea of Thieves in the months to c

At the upcoming E3 event, Phil Spencer and the rest of the Xbox crew are planning to give plenty of stage time to the games coming for the Microsoft console. And while not every game coming out this year has yet been revealed, there are plenty that have already been announced and are set to arrive in the coming months. In that vein, here are five Xbox One exclusives on the horizon that look poised for succ

This isn't the first time that Rare has talked about cross-play for Sea of Thieves , however. Earlier this year, when Rare first activated the closed alpha on PC, the team decided to try out cross-play just to see it here how it felt. Executive Producer Joe Neate called the experience "magical," explaining that it led him to question why any game would split player bases. But questions about balance and fairness prevented Rare from making it official straight away, however the more the studio considered cross-play, the more it realized there was no good reason not to include

"One of the things we’re very aware of is the need for the balancing to be right. After running some recent tests, we found that PC players were 4.5% more efficient at killing skeletons than Xbox players, and this feels close enough that it’s something we’ll continue to monitor. However, PvP between platforms, or more importantly device input, is the big focus point for us as a Design team, and already we’ve been working closely with the Game Experience team to change the way the guns work to be better balanced for cross play. We’ve put in a bunch of telemetry around this, and with the change to guns it’s made them feel tonally so much more fitting, as previously they felt more like laser weapons than ancient plundered-and-pillaged gunpowder-driven blunderbuss

First announced back in 2015, the swash-buckling action title Sea of Thieves looks to serve up plenty of daring adventure on the high seas later this year on Xbox One. While developer Rare has revealed quite a bit about the game already, there are still quite a few details still under wraps at the stu

On that note of creating a unique and personal experience, there will be plenty of customization options both as for the pirate character and the ship. These customization items will be both cosmetic and functional to help ensure that the pirate I design with the attributes and look I want will not be the same pirate you create. The cartoonish art style hints that this will be a more lighthearted and fun version of pirates as opposed to a more historically accurate bloodthirsty crew infected with scurvy.

And the cinematic trailer for Sea of Thieves does promise quite a bit more than what Rare was able to show today. Treasure hunting on land and under the sea, combat between ships using both cannons, pistols, and swords, adventuring on islands into hidden places, and encountering both enemy pirates and supernatural fiends like skeletons. And sprinkled throughout the trailer is gold, treasure chests, and the struggle to control such riches. And that's all layered under the social experience that's at the heart of Sea of Thiev

While the Sea of Thieves gameplay shown yet is not necessarily what the entirety of the game will deliver, Rare didn't want to just leave fans with an idea of what the game will be. As such, Rare put together a cinematic trailer to go along with the gameplay. This cinematic trailer captures what Rare intends Sea of Thieves to grow into between now and its launch, whenever that may be. Rare didn't give any promises on that front, merely stating that the team is working very hard and Sea of Thieves is growing closer to its vision every

It wasn't too long ago that Bandai Namco announced Code Vein . However, with its announcement, details of which platform it would be coming to was unknown. Until today, at least. Code Vein has been announced for Xbox One, with an enhanced version coming to the Xbox On

Microsoft officially reveals the long-awaited console, named Xbox One X, which is slated to release worldwide November 7th, 2017. Packing impressive technical specifications, the console includes a CPU/GPU combo capable of delivering 6 teraflops of computing power, 12GB of GDDR5 RAM, and 1TB of storage, sticking true to the long-speculated 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray disk driver and true delivery of 4K gaming cont

The relative lack of gameplay shown compared to ways players can interact in basic ways was intentional, however. Rare would later state that the game is still mid-development on many gameplay systems, but that the team is so excited to show the game that everyone wants to show what's reasonable. For example the island adventuring, the customization features, and most important perhaps -- the loot, are still in-development systems. Those features will be shown as soon as they're ready, as Rare intends to be as transparent as can be going forw