The Sea of Thieves closed beta has only been active for a handful of days, but that hasn't stopped hungry gamers from turning over every rock (in-game or otherwise) in the quest to uncover as much about the game as possible. The upcoming multiplayer seafaring experience will see pirates voyaging from island to island in search of treasure, contracts, and glory, but the closed beta only offers a sample-sized portion of the full picture. Now, Sea Of Thieves Tips of Thieves fans have datamined the closed beta in order to get a better glimpse of what is to c

Ah yes, 2016 is here. We've finally gotten to the point in our planet's history where the current year almost sounds fictitious. Bad quips about how the number of years that have passed aside, 2016 is set to be a downright fascinating 366 days when it comes to video games (that's right, it's a leap year - here's to hoping you found this out from a gaming article). If there's one thing that there isn't enough of on the Internet every year, it's articles hoping for certain aspects of a new year to be wonderful. In honor of this, we're bringing you three wonderful wishes for each major gaming entity (PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo and PC) over the next four days that, if true, might just make 2016 the best year for gaming yet. While the Xbox One is very much in second place, Microsoft's heavy consumer focus over the past year definitely has put the Xbox One in prime position to be a downright awesome console.

As these five games illustrate, 2016 is shaping up to be another banner year for the Xbox One. While the system definitely had a rocky start thanks to a very misguided E3 2013 presentation, it now has a fairly extensive library of quality games, and many more are on the way. If the five games listed here all manage to avoid delay and live up to the hype, then 2016 could possibly be the best year for Xbox One to d

While the closed beta only features sharks and skeletons as AI-controlled enemies, the datamine reveals a wider variety of enemies and creatures, some of which have already been featured in trailers for the game . The data implies that the full game will feature bats, chickens, fish, parrots, pigs, seagulls, sharks, and snakes. It's not currently known if parrots will be tamable, allowing pirates to mount a feathered companion on their shoulders as they guzzle down some grog. The datamine also reveals that mermaids will not always be friendly like they are in the beta, and that the Kraken will wrap its tentacles around the ship in a manner which will likely require the crew to work together quickly in order to surv

Azario: It was at this moment that we clearly hadn’t earned our Jolly Roger. In a matter of minutes, I jumped off the crow’s nest into the deep blue sea, as Noah and Logan became intoxicated. Sadly, my crew left me for d

Interestingly, Rare didn't have anything else to say about how Sea of Thieves would be monetised after its launch next year. All Mayles could offer in that regard was a broad design philosophy that hints towards a content release plan similar to that of Destiny or other long-term investments like The Divisi

Tomas: Fortunately I stopped and Azario was able to get back on the ship after about a minute of swimming, and we continued our voyage to the island. It was smooth sailing (pun intended) from there. Once we reached the island, I had someone shoot me out of a cannon onto the isl

Crackdown 3 had been rumored for the Xbox One since the console's unveiling, and when Microsoft finally released the first footage of the game, fans were not disappointed. After a second entry that was met with lukewarm critical reception, Crackdown 3 is poised to put the young franchise back on track with a focus on co-op, multiplayer, and 100% destructible environmen

After years of remastering their classic games, working on Kinect-only titles, and making Avatars, Rare is finally back with their biggest game since 2008. The game in question, Sea of Thieves , will allow players to carve out their own unique tales on the high seas with friends in a pirate-themed multiplayer adventure. Fans responded well to the E3 2015 Sea of Thieves trailer , so hopefully we see more of Rare's next game sooner rather than la

It's been a while since we've heard new details about Capybara's long-in-development dungeon crawler, hasn't it. I continue to maintain that the demos of Below that I've spent time with are some of the best gaming experiences I've had in quite some time, but we are getting to the point where it's hard not to wonder what the hold up is. Capy is a studio loaded with immensely talented people who take a ton of pride in what they do, and the hope here is that the final touches are being put into place. Below was originally set to be a 2015 title, and Capy has gone into the portion of its development cycle where it falls completely silent until the final title is released. Now that it's 2016, it would be wonderful to see a new trailer or two before a launch before March 31 of this year. Let's face it, if we go through another six months without hearing anything about Below, it's going to be hard to remind gamers why they should care about this wonderful title all over again.