Sea of Thieves is usually at its finest when it devolves into chaos. After raiding a skeleton ship and loading up your brig with loot, instantly, a participant galleon seems from behind an island, turning its broadside cannons in your route for a sneak assault. Returning fireplace, repairing your ship, and desperately turning your sails to make an escape–or firing a crewmate over to the enemy to put waste to them and steal their stuff–are the moments that make Rare’s pirate journey dwell sport so memorable.But do not low cost Rare’s capacity to make deep, brainy story content material, both. Since its launch, Sea of Thieves has come to embody Tall Tales, prolonged voyages centered on fixing riddles and studying about non-player characters that make up the sport’s lore. It’s on this extra directed, narrative-driven realm that the sport’s newest enlargement, A Pirate’s Life, lies as properly. Tying in with Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean movie franchise, the enlargement offers new tales to uncover which might be each pretty pleasant for followers of the movies and the theme park attraction that spawned them, in addition to massive, concerned new Sea of Thieves places to discover.A Pirate’s Life provides lots to Sea of Thieves, increasing on its sandbox with new enemies and a brand new weapon, whereas offering a number of hours of story content material that is deep sufficient for skilled gamers to get pleasure from and approachable sufficient for newbies excited to sail the seas with Jack Sparrow. Though it is held again sometimes by bugs and depends on a few of Sea of Thieves’ weaker components, like hitchy platforming, the enlargement is a good excuse to man the helm of a pirate vessel.Core to A Pirate’s Life are 5 new Tall Tales tales, which observe Pirates of the Caribbean mainstay Jack Sparrow and his crew. Through some adventuring, the film characters have discovered their approach into the bizarre and mystical online game world, however they have been chased there by Davy Jones, the magical Pirates of the Caribbean villain. Jones desires to take management of the Sea of Thieves, so it’s essential to save Jack from the realm of the lifeless (referred to as the Sea of the Damned), work out Jones’ plans, and finally ship the squid-faced villain again to the place he belongs to protect the last word freedom of the pirate life.Playing via these 5 tales takes you to the Sea of the Damned itself, a brand new location filled with puzzles and secrets and techniques, and the Sunken Kingdom, a colourful underwater realm. The Tall Tales themselves are typically fairly linear story ranges, however like Sea of Thieves’ different Tall Tales, they do an amazing job of difficult you to discover the surroundings, resolve puzzles, and navigate imaginative areas. In the primary, as an illustration, you will have to rescue the pinnacle of an undead, skeletal pirate captain, and you may uncover secrets and techniques all through the world by inserting his head on skeleton our bodies so he can take management of them.Of course, it is a Pirates of the Caribbean story, so you will spend lots of the length encountering varied film characters. Jack Sparrow is round essentially the most, and he is truly a fairly enjoyable addition to the sport, bringing lots of humor and sometimes even serving to you out in fights in opposition to the assorted enemies and creatures Davy Jones sends to cease you.Gallery
Sparrow’s presence helps meld A Pirate’s Life’s Disney inspirations with Sea of Thieves’ basis, which helps to ensure the content material would not really feel like an unwarranted digression into one other franchise. He’s the identical humorous, quirky character from the films, however he is additionally fairly helpful at some key moments, even becoming a member of your crew for some time towards the top of the Tall Tales collection. He’s round simply sufficient to make this really feel like a Pirates of the Caribbean story, whereas additionally working as a becoming Sea of Thieves story. That’s a stability that might have been powerful to seek out, however Rare does an amazing job of blending the 2 properties collectively to make for a enjoyable diversion out of your standard pirate escapades.A Pirate’s Life can be an amazing entry level for brand spanking new gamers. Because the Tall Tales principally happen off the crushed path or in their very own cases, you are unlikely to run into different gamers who may attempt to steal your stuff, sink your boat, or in any other case problem you. The stakes are additionally fairly low–any time you die, you simply respawn once more in the identical place within the Tall Tales story (an appreciated change from how the remainder of the sport handles dying, which both places you in your ship or, if it sinks, in a close-by outpost). That makes this content material fairly nice for simply getting began in Sea of Thieves, or for lone gamers who need to enterprise into the sport with out a crew, however do not like the chance of dropping a ton of progress to different gamers.The downside is that A Pirate’s Life would not actually really feel like the remainder of Sea of Thieves; it is extra of its personal separate factor. In the remainder of Rare’s sport, crusing round requires fixed vigilance as you scope for different pirates who may doubtlessly resolve to have interaction you in battle (or, in considerably rarer instances, show pleasant). The openness of the sport and randomness afforded by different gamers are what make Sea of Thieves so enjoyable and distinctive. A Pirate’s Life would not actually embrace that side; whereas there are aspect puzzles to unravel and secrets and techniques to uncover, the tales are extra simple and conventional online game fare. You’ll transfer via distinct ranges on a particular path, and whereas there aren’t any waypoints main you, there’s nonetheless just one possible way ahead.So getting into Sea of Thieves for the primary time via A Pirate’s Life is not fairly supplying you with a style of the core expertise, or the style it is supplying you with is incomplete with out different gamers. That could be good and dangerous, since A Pirate’s Life eases you into the water relatively than shoving you off the plank, however it will probably additionally give a skewed notion of what the sport is. And for those who’re searching for extra Tall Tales that have you ever crusing everywhere in the Sea of Thieves, pushed by obscure clues and exploring the world you already know, you are going to be disenchanted; these ranges are massive and full in their very own proper, however they’re decidedly extra self-contained.Gallery
The Tall Tales for A Pirate’s Life are additionally a bit on the buggy aspect at launch, though Rare has already launched a patch to take care of a few of these points. It’s additionally simple to get misplaced and confused within the massive ranges, or to expertise game-affecting oddities like falling from excessive locations and discovering your self caught behind locked doorways you already opened. During a boss battle within the second Tall Tale, I used a pulley system to elevate a shipwreck excessive within the air to stage its cannons in opposition to my foe–but mid-fight, I received knocked off the deck and killed. When I loaded again in, the boat was out of place and could not be moved, however the battle continued, with cannonballs now taking pictures straight up within the air and passing via the boss’s physique. The glitch subsided just a few deaths later, however for some time there, the battle was a large number that could not be completed.I performed via all 5 Tall Tales alone and did not encounter any game-breaking points, though the expertise was considerably marred by the aforementioned troubles and checkpoints not loading accurately. It’s additionally simple to get misplaced due to Sea of Thieves’ lack of guidance–something that makes the sport compelling whenever you’re out in its full world, however which could be annoying whenever you’re caught in a room attempting to determine the place the sport expects you to go subsequent.Some glitchy points apart, A Pirate’s Life’s Tall Tales are fairly enjoyable to play, even alone. They do really feel a bit simple and low-stakes at occasions, which undercuts the story Rare is attempting to inform of a world-threatening villain. But it is good to have one thing you possibly can leap into that is enjoyable to play however would not contain the potential stresses of Sea of Thieves’ standard risk-reward nature.Apart from the brand new tales, the opposite upshot of A Pirate’s Life is the way in which it reinvigorates the remainder of the sport. The Tall Tales you will play introduce a bunch of latest enemies. On land, there are the three sorts of creatures referred to as ocean crawlers–a large armored crab, a toxic clam monster, and an electrical eel enemy. All three require distinct methods to defeat, and so they can synergize their talents so as to add extra problem. There are additionally new phantom pirates that may disappear and reappear to deal large harm, and undersea sirens who make leaping off your boat all of the extra treacherous. To aid you take care of these threats, yow will discover a brand new merchandise referred to as the Trident of Dark Tides, which expenses as much as fireplace a bubble of power that may be devastating to AI enemies and different gamers alike.Gallery
These additions are all a part of the tales of the enlargement’s Tall Tales, however you need not play the tales to expertise them–they’re additionally out in the remainder of Sea of Thieves as properly, and so they inject some welcome selection into the sandbox. For a lot of the sport’s life, gamers have been combating completely different sorts of skeleton pirates, all of which do battle in kind of the identical approach, so throwing in some new creatures livens issues up fairly a bit. And if yow will discover it on the planet, the Trident of Dark Tides additionally places a brand new weapon in your arsenal, creating new methods in fight. It all provides just a little extra depth to Sea of Thieves to assist make the sport proceed to really feel prefer it’s evolving on a regular basis.A Pirate’s Life is an enormous, enjoyable addition to Sea of Thieves that brings lots of new content material, is stuffed with enjoyable components for Disney Pirates followers, and refreshes the remainder of the sport with good additions. It would not fairly symbolize the most effective of what Sea of Thieves is or has to supply, however that is nonetheless an amazing excuse to hoist the pirate flag for the primary time, and provides a brand new horizon to probe for long-time scalawags.