"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

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.

According to Rare, the studio wants to offer a balanced experience that's equal in almost every facet. In practice, that means a game with full feature parity, but more than that it means an equal playing field from day one. So Rare also says they're planning on launching Sea of Thieves day and date on both console and PC, with launch still on track for early 2

It’s in no title way surprising that the mantra of "…but what do I do?" or variations thereupon, has lingered over Sea of Thieves like a pungent-but-irremovable odor. While there was always a strong case that there’d already been a fair amount of intrigue built up for what Rare — proper Rare that is, not Kinect Sports-shackled "Rare" — was cooking-up, prior to and since its reveal back at E3 2015 (which admittedly garnered somewhat of a deflated "eeeeeehhhhhh" reaction from yours truly), details pertaining to its content, its progression, its finer details outside of an odd sample of footage and some rather unfunny plodding through voluntary player commentary, have been somewhat conserved. For what purpose though; after all, you and I both know Microsoft need all the good marketing they can get their hands on if they’re to give Xbox a reasonable chance in 2018.

Sea of Thieves looks to be the latest in the plethora of new and upcoming shared-world games. The shared world concept is still fairly new for console gamers, and seems to pull together the best of role playing games and massive multiplayer online games into a full online world that gives players the opportunity to interact with each other, work together, and fight one another in an epic wo

While the Sea of Thieves trailer was short, it did provide a few interesting details about the upcoming title. Players will explore an open world that includes big and small islands, ships to sail aboard, and people to interact w

While five years might be a little optimistic for a game that hasn't released yet, Sea of Thieves remains one of the most exciting Xbox One and PC exclusives on the horizon, and if it fulfills the promise it has shown in recent gameplay demonstrations, Mayles just might get his wish after

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 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 hottest games coming out of Microsoft's E3 2016 presentation has to be Rare's open-world pirate adventure game Sea of Thieves . The multiplayer-focused title awed audiences with its gameplay demonstration, revealing a deep and nuanced engine that lets gamers occupy roles as important as a ship's captain and as seemingly trivial as the drunken accordion player. It's not much of a stretch to say that fans of pirates and co-operative gameplay have been utterly entranced by what Sea of Thieves has put on offer so