It's a good time to play Sea of ​​Thieves, but I still want more fish

After complaining about Sea of ​​Thieves' cooperative, but "missing content", co-operative navigation framework, Rare spent last year adding new enemies, missions and cosmetics, as well as a new section of volcanic map. They have all been good updates, and if you have not played at Sea of ​​Thieves since its launch, there is still much to be done. I thought it was a fun game right out, and I think it's more fun now. But what I really want is more fish.

For me, the greatest joy in Sea of ​​Thieves is sailing. It sets sail, goes back and forth with my navigator, slides with sail angles, enjoys the unequaled rendering of waves and plays music on my accordion.

I understand why Rare would focus her updates on Sea of ​​Thieves' central loop (fighting, buying treasures, selling them, buying cosmetics), but her design inevitably evokes travel. To find a treasure, you have to navigate there. To sell it, you must go to an outpost. I hope that Rare will pause in the addition of new destinations and will work for a while on the part related to its routing because the routine has become obsolete.

Once you have become quite good at navigating and have gone through all the songs available to play on your instruments, you travel a lot by hopping on the bridge to do something when you search for topics of conversation. That's why I think adding flag flags was a great idea. Whenever I receive a new ship, choosing the flag that my crew wishes becomes part of the installation routine with the loading of the guns. It's something about conversation and a task to check – it's a minor task, of course, but anything that adds considerations other than wind direction is a good addition, in my opinion .

So, a player may need to clean the game from time to time to prevent it from becoming slippery. Or the barnacles must be ejected from the hull. Or new types of damage and repairs are introduced, or a way to build poor additions to your ship as you go. I would appreciate anything that adds drama, complexity and playfulness to just browsing.

I want more fish too. In my review, I said that even though the sea surface of Sea of ​​Thieves was beautiful, she felt sterile, and it is always so. There are some small schools of fish swimming under the surface near the islands, but otherwise, the ocean is stripped. I want to see big entanglements of seaweed, jellyfish, whales coming off, dolphins jumping on the side of my ship, otters being cute.

The new marine life could bring new mysteries. Maybe dolphins will lead their players to wrecks of unmarked ships and help repel sharks. Perhaps an experimental player will discover a way to swim in the mouth of a whale and meet a disgruntled NPC named James Bartley.

I know: all this is easier said than done. Anyone can brainstorm as a rear seat designer (and open games like Sea of ​​Thieves tend to bring out the rear seat designer in all of us). But even if my specific suggestions did not really work out, what I mean is that there are few things in Sea of ​​Thieves that do not want to kill you, and that the fights are often so long that my crew and I escape through. It's good that the difficulty of taking Skeleton Ships, for example, encourages teaming up with other crews, but I'm not always in the mood to do it. I would like to see more non-hostile surprises. I think that 's what would bring me back to the water every weekend.

The mini games are good, actually

Or, and this has been suggested a million times, we already get a dangling mini-game. (I asked Rare about it some time ago and they heard the suggestion.They are probably quite fed up with hearing it.) Sorry, Rare.)

Minigames are unfairly soiled simply because some minigames are bad, but many of them are excellent. I want to take long trips fishing, watching the whales, repairing the ship and playing dangerous darts with my usual co-captain while swaying in the middle of a storm.

Speaking of Captain Livingston, the most fun we had together was in the beta of Sea of ​​Thieves when we decided to leave the map. The sea turned red and tried to kill us, resulting in hilarious and panicky repairs as we slowly turned around to return to the map. It is one of the few irreplaceable moments that I have experienced in Sea of ​​Thieves. To create more of these moments, Rare must be inspired by Fortnite: just add items. Add things that do not make sense. Add unbalanced or stupid things. Add things that will feed other stories that Chris writes, such as when he had followed a Skyrim NPC to see what she had done. And do not necessarily talk to anyone.

I understand why this has not been the approach so far. Executive Producer Joe Neate did a quality job like Ben Brode informing the players with videos, and of course, Rare wants to highlight important additions like the Kraken. The players said Sea of ​​Thieves needed "more content," and what I'm asking for does not make for a captivating ball point. "There are now eels in the water, they just swim and look cool, because Tyler said there should be more fish."

But if I connected to Sea of ​​Thieves on a Saturday night, I jumped to the water and discovered that he was teeming with life and potential secrets (the statues of the mermaid on the seabed were been another good addition), I think more thrilled than if I was attacked by another sprawling monster.

The update of the arena next year could be a boon to Sea of ​​Thieves, because at the moment, players who like PvP ship battles above all can not fight quickly. I would like it to be associated with a one-to-one person-to-person overhaul, as the weapons are just not very fun at the moment. But I hope Rare noticed how much we enjoyed rowboats. Chris and I jumped after adding them. just to make them race… and the signal flags, the megaphone and all the little things we can experiment instead of killing. There are a lot of fighting events in Sea of ​​Thieves now, and it's a good time to play, but what I hope to see in the future is a brighter sea, not more deadly.