Today Rare delivered the fourth Sea of Thieves trailer in a series that has been dubbed “Short Hauls,” or short developer diaries that describe aspects of the game’s experience. Rare sees fit to design philosophy and goals in these Short Hauls, hoping to give potential players some perspective on what kind of game Sea of Thieves is shaping up to be . “Visual Effects” is the topic of this latest Short Haul trailer, or how Rare’s focus on the details will better create a true pirate advent
“When we talk about visual effects in games, we normally mean particles. That’s what we’re using to create all of the cannon effects for example, like the different explosions. You want to give the player strong feelings when they’re playing the game… You should just feel like you’re really part of this beautiful wor
Microsoft has officially announced that Rare’s multiplayer pirate action game Sea of Thieves will feature cross-play between Xbox One and PC. The announcement came during today’s Xbox Gamescom livestream, which included some new trailers, a few announcements, and concluded with the launch of Xbox One X pre-orders. But cross-play for Sea of Thieves could be the biggest surprise, with the game’s closed technical alpha implementing the feature, effective immediat
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
Neate is not the first developer to offer this explanation, with former Uncharted developer Amy Hennig also saying that loot boxes and microtransactions are a result of rising game development costs . This means that players can likely expect more microtransactions in games going forward, but many will be hoping that they follow Sea of Thieves ‘ lead and only offer cosmetic unlo
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
Previous episodes in Sea of Thieves ‘ Short Haul trailer series include ” Creating Clouds ,” ” Aboard the Ship ,” and ” Instruments .” Each explores an example of how Sea of Thieves tries to bring the player closer to the world in which they’re playing. Instruments talks about how players can add their own soundtrack within the game through gameplay, but how it’s also influenced by social aspects of the game . Creating Clouds shows how Sea of Thieves is using an ever-present object in virtually every game — clouds — in a new way to add depth to the experience. It’s unexplored territory, which pirates would appreci
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
Specific examples of visual effects cited within Sea of Thieves ‘ trailer include cannon explosions and how cannon balls crash into ship hulls, as well as the spray of water as a ship parts the sea. Andreas Oberg, the VFX Lead at Rare, describes these effects in detail regarding how they’re used to create a more visceral and engaging experience for players. Andreas describes it thusly within the trai
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
For now, though, Rare will continue with the development of Sea Of Thieves Strategy|Https://Seaofthievesfans.Com/ of Thieves in preparation for its forthcoming launch. There’s plenty to do, and Rare seems like they’re adding new ideas as fast as they can come up with them. The studio just revealed how players can now get sick and vomit into a bucket, then use the bucket as a weapon against friends (or alli
“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