Ship customization seems to be another thing unearthed by the data-pirates. The files found seem to imply the ability to customize a ship's cannons, capstan (pirate talk for 'anchor holder'), livery, mast, and the captain's wheel. There are additional sections as well, listed under 'Ship misc' is a harpoon

The reveal of Rare Replay and the teaser for Sea of Thieves was a marketing poly to get gamers excited to play Rare games again, even though the game will not be anywhere near the same quality we have come to expect from "old" Rare titles during their run with Nintendo. This isn’t to say the game has no chance, but the point is that "old" Rare is officially dead and this new incarnation is building up hype off of titles they had no affiliation with.

When you think about pirate encounters from books or movies, you tend to think of dynamic encounters in which the crews start by selecting the right tool for the job, but then change their weaponry as the situation changes. We think about this scenario our game using the example of two ships meeting on the sea. In this example, the first thing that is likely to happen is for cannon balls to be exchanged when the ships come into range. Depending on how the crews decide to position the ships, this may lead to the ships getting close enough for players to use personal arms, such as flintlock pistols and the blunderbuss. With our approach to aim down sights, you’d see the some of the rival crew taking aim with their guns as the crews exchange shots between decks, while some players still continue to fire with the cannons. Following this, in the event of one of the crews boarding the other ship, they might then get the opportunity to get a single shot off while standing on the enemy deck, before then being forced into a reload…which is where swords come

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

But perhaps it's this deliberate restriction that lends itself to some interesting interactions between players and novel use of player skills as a means at working better together. While the skill at merely turning a map around to show others sounds ridiculously basic, it’s a clever move in context. A means to build bridges between similarly-plucked team-mates and better incentivises Sea of Thieves’ core, principle lesson in working together. Granted the perk is proven moot when, upon agreeing on a particular voyage, you simply get handed the same maps in your inventory, but the physicality of such interactivity in-game is welcome regardless. When it comes to your ship, though, all hands are most certainly on deck. There are sails to align and angle; potential hazards to flag and shout out to the player steering the ship (whom, if the sails are set at full length can’t see where they’re steering, again a nice nudging toward better relationships)…and if worse comes to worse, leaks to repair should you collide. Or even worse, cries of "FRAME-RATE!" -- as I had to do when a teammate is barking compass directions but I have no means to control the stuttering performance -- when the game (on PC) decides to nose-dive from relatively stable 60FPS to, at its worst, the high-teens -- the most notable drops occurring mostly at sea, relatively afar from shore.

This isn't commentary on the fact that Skull & Bones has all the potential in the world to muscle in on Sea of Thieves Tips of Thieves ' territory, either. We went hands on with Rare's upcoming multiplayer pirate experience and came away wanting more, both in terms of gameplay (because it was good) and features (because it seemed largely the same). Sea of Thieves is still a good game, and there's some enjoyment to be had within its colorful pirate world, but it feels like it hasn't evolved since the last time we saw it, and that's cause for some disappointm

The reason this change in creative directors is such a big deal is because the company we once fell in love with as a whole no longer existed at this point in time. Everyone who had worked on the classic smash hits such as Banjo-Kazooie, Jet Force Gemini, Donkey Kong Country and many, many others throughout their seven years with Nintendo had left the company and were replaced by a whole new group. Rare, as it stands today, has no members of the original creative team behind their ingenious games left on their roster. Much like when Star Wars was bought by Disney, a whole new creative team is now behind those films; George Lucas and his new ideas have been tossed out never to be heard from again. Meaning that Rare as we knew it is truly dead.

Rare was a legendary developer back in the golden age of gaming. When the beloved company was perfectly partnered with Nintendo, the partnership went as well together as peanut butter and jelly and through 1994-2001 everything was fine and dandy until game development cost began to gradually increase and Nintendo decided not to provide the company with more capital nor did they buy up the remaining stake that was leftover, forcing the company to search for a potential buyer to stay in the game. In the end we all know that Microsoft purchased the company for $375 million and from that day on Rare was a first-party developer for Microsoft.