Wendy Woodall

For someone who was initially miffed about Rare going the way of a massively-multiplayer, online experience — and admittedly heralding a much lower level of excitement as a result — the outcome, after a fair number of days at [virtual] sea in the closed beta, are more upbeat. Albeit, still mixed in a number of ways. Let’s start with the positives and work our way down: Sea of Thieves has a peculiar degree of charm to it. Perhaps not to the same degree of colorful personality of previous titles, but subtly present nonetheless. Anyone who’s followed Rare for a long time will instantly recognize the degree of care and consideration for the details, both grand and minuscule in equal measure. The glare of the sun as you swim your way back to your ship, the ruffle of paper as you scour your chartered map for the desired island to reach; even the way your on-board lanterns flicker and crackle as the waves collide and risk snuffing out the flames.

Other honorable mentions include the mention of mermaids being listed as enemies although they appear to be benevolent in the beta, and other fruits joining the banana as food available to players. The full list of data below also features new maps, landmark locations, NPCs and Shops that have not been seen bef

To sail the seven seas, embracing the life of a pirate is a dream that E3 is keen to deliver with Rare's Xbox and Windows 10 exclusive Sea of Thieves . After debuting at Microsoft's press conference during E3 2015 , everyone expected more of the first-person pirate adventure game to be shown this year as well. Rare did not disappoint on expectation, delivering the first gameplay as well as a new cinematic trailer. Rare even went beyond expectations, going onto the Youtube Live E3 stream and showing off another block of gamep

Having previously resided on Steam, Coffee Stain Publishing and Ghost Ship Games' Deep Rock Galactic is landing exclusively at console launch on the Xbox One, giving you the opportunity to co-operatively shoot your foes in FPS fash

Then there’s the workings and actual programming side of the ocean itself, particularly the many ways in which the waves crash and tumble against your ship. The textures and dynamics, the way they sway to and fro, sending a once calm voyage into potentially risky affairs; I’ve plenty to say on this feature alone, so I’ll leave it at that for the time being. In terms of gameplay, wherein (least in the beta build) you can decide to go it alone, team up with another or join a party of four, Sea of Thieves is a hands-on, labor-focused experience, stripping away all hereditary comforts with the interface such as a mini-map or objective indicators alike in favor of more communicative and team-based, working together.

Delivering sword combat for a network game, especially as part of a first person experience, is particularly challenging. We’re busy prototyping sword combat to get it into exactly the right place before we add it to a build that some lucky players in the Insider Programme will get a chance to play and provide feedback on. We’ve tried a few different approaches and we’re getting closer to a solution we feel happy with. We know where it needs it sit in terms of the overall approach to combat, but we’re still keen resolve some remaining issues before its ready for a larger audience. As always, there will be much more to share in the fut

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

I’m not suggesting there be some kind of grind or loot-based collectathon (Rare certainly know how to do collectathons, but perhaps they best steer away from that concept for the time being) that hooks players into getting better/faster/stronger/more resilient, but more importantly, coming back for more. Whether it’s the bare simplicity of island design, the lack of any real management structure aboard your ship or just the general transparency of its world’s engagement, Sea of Thieves feels just like one of those temporary respites prior to some grander investment in another game. Something you muck about with for an hour and nothing more. And for something as crucial as it’s been for someone like myself who seldom indulges in online multiplayer, while Sea of Thieves gets the teamwork principle down…then what?

And yet…as pleasing as it was to eventually get to grips with the ship’s functions — jostling between control of the wheel and micro-managing of the sails, during solo sessions — or as enticing the next island on the horizon was to make landfall over, it’s hard not to come away from Sea Of Thieves Weapons|Https://Seaofthievesfans.Com/ of Thieves and think: "OK…but what else is there?" Admittedly while the beta did restrict activities to purely hunting down treasure, to say the more "in-between" segments — the mundane segments if you will — proved to be the more entertaining and/or insightful segments brings up a worrying and (potentially) lacking hook that Sea of Thieves’ gameplay sorely needs.