Some prospective Sea of Thieves players may question the decision to include microtransactions, but Neate has an explanation for the business model. "Ultimately I have to look at the reality of running a game-as-service as a business," says the executive producer, adding that "My goal and everyone else's goal here is to have as many people as possible working on this, and just keep giving people reasons to return, reasons to have fun. We have to run that like a business, you need revenue coming

Speaking to IGN , Rare's executive producer Joe Neate confirmed that the first major post-launch Sea of Thieves update will introduce microtransactions. This update is expected around three months after Sea of Thieves ' launch and "anything in this area will not impact power or progression, and you'll always know what you're getting - so that means no loot crates," says Neate. Given the ongoing controversy surrounding pay to win loot boxes and the debate on whether or not loot boxes are gambling , many will be glad to hear that Sea of Thieves won't feature that mecha

A recent datamine of the game's files uncovered lots more Sea of Thieves content, including new enemies and animals such as parrots, pigs, and seagulls. The leak also pointed to lots of character and ship customization , from tattoos and eyepatches to a variety of ship hulls. With the game's microtransactions still a few months away, Rare is still working on the finer details but these datamined options do sound like the sort of cosmetic items that could be unlocked via microtransacti

What do you think about Sea of Thieves not being free-to-play? Is it fair for developers to still take this approach to multiplayer content, or has the era of paid multiplayer business models started to fade away? Let us know in the comments be

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 Sailing Guide of Thieves has put on offer so

As our Executive Producer, @JoeNineTee said in An Important Question for Joe and Gang, we’ve been talking about how best to respond to some of the big questions that we see on the forums. Fair to say, personal combat is an area that has lots of outstanding questions around how we’re planning to approach this in terms of the variety of weaponry and how this will feel to p

It won't be surprising if Bethesda is announcing Skyrim remakes well into the turn of the 22nd century at this rate. While sales for Skyrim 's various remasters and re-releases have indicated that there is still a vibrant market for Bethesda's most popular take on The Elder Scrolls series, there comes a time when the ability to play as the Dragonborn on every existing modern-day console becomes less impressive. That time could be now, as what would have been a previously riot-inducing announcement in the release date for Skyrim on Switch was met with general fatigue from many RPG fans. Skyrim on the go will no doubt be fun, and the addition of the Master Sword into the game is a nice touch, but it's beginning to feel as though Bethesda simply refuses to move on from the world of Skyrim at the cost of a new Elder Scrolls title being develo

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

It is extremely important for us that sword combat feels right for the Sea of Thieves world. We don’t want to use excessive UI elements, we want to maintain first person, and it needs work neatly alongside the numerous other game mechanics. It’s also critical for sword combat to work all kinds of emergent scenarios. it won’t always be 1v1, it might be 3v3 or 5v1,

After the absolutely electric response from the crowd last year during Sony's Last of Us 2 trailer reveal at PlayStation Experience 2016, many people considered the upcoming sequel to be a lock for this year's conference. Those expectations were dashed, however, when Sony closed its presentation on a new Spider-Man gameplay demonstration that, while exciting, wasn't exactly what many were expecting from one of the most influential companies in gaming during the industry's flashiest w

That's our list of the biggest disappointments that emerged out of this year's E3. Did we miss anything major? Anything you need to get off your chest about this year's showcase? Let us know in the comments be

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 fans have datamined the closed beta in order to get a better glimpse of what is to c