A full year of updates has given the world the game it deserved - and it's just about to get a lot better thanks to the upcoming Anniversary update
SEA OF THIEVES' appeal is obvious -- it lets you play out that playground fantasy of a life on the ocean wave, hunting for buried treasure and having plenty of hijinks along the way.
It really is a giant playground where everyone is living out their own little pirate dream, generally with a few mates and occasionally with a whole fleet of them.
But it's also become much more than that. Some games tell you stories, but Sea of Thieves has thrived in the way it lets you and everyone you play with make them.
The joy of the world comes from the freedom it gives you. There's no leveling up, there are no skill trees to navigate, there's just the open ocean and adventures to be had.
Oh, and there's treasure. But while some games might have you trading that treasure for faster ships or bigger guns, all Sea of Thieves really encourages is for you to use it to buy a Really Big Hat.
All the upgrades you can buy with your treasure are cosmetic, be it for your ship or your pirate. The emphasis really is on building your legend and your stories and bringing other people along for the ride.
It's got a community to match its sense of fun too -- practically everyone in the game is there for the same reason, and that is to enjoy the beautifully crafted and slightly wonky world Rare unleashed last year and have been adding to ever since.
Tall order of Tall Tales
The Anniversary expansion, which drops at the end of this month, is the culmination of that first year's work and from what we've seen it looks every bit as magical as we'd hoped.
It doesn't re-invent the ship's wheel, but it does take what the game does well and really build on it.
Tall Tales brings crafted stories into the world, which will take players on a lengthy adventures through the whole world and its lore, bit by bit.
We got to play the start of one on a recent visit to Rare's offices and loved every minute of it.
Think of Tall Tales as the slightly wonky lovechild of Indiana Jones and Jack Sparrow, and you're a good part of the way there.
Picking up the trail in a tavern, the first chapter of the story sees you and your crew deciphering clues to hunt for clues, deciphering a ship's log and solving a puzzle while trapped in an island cave as it slowly filled with water.
Following the clues is, like many other things in Sea of Thieves, a matter of teamwork.
You'll read the clues, and consult your map and argue with your friends over what each clue means and where you should set sail to next.
It's all set in the normal open world too, so you can still find treasure, make money through normal voyages and be devoured by Kraken as you follow the breadcrumbs, meaning that these new tightly-crafted stories really can serve as a colourful backdrop to the bigger story you're telling as you go along.
SEA OF THIEVES is a fun, family friendly game that is simple to understand and play, but also tactical and deep.
At its best your voyages can be mini road-trips with friends, with stories of escapes from sharks, alliances formed and shattered, treasure stolen and lost to the depths.
It's a very low-fi game -- you need to read your map and follow your compass before setting sail, bail out your ship with a bucket as it starts taking on water, and really work as a crew to succeed.
On a four man ship one of you might be in the crow's nest scanning the horizon, with another at the wheel, another manning the sails to catch the wind and one more manning chart and compass to keep you on track.
That low-fi physicality makes getting into character and just letting yourself get swept away by the silliness really very easy, and also really encourages good communication.
Communication extends beyond your crew too -- if you find yourself under fire, you can often literally talk your way out of it thanks to the community's respect for the pirate code.
Everything fits together, and everyone seems to play along -- because if you don't, there's no real reason to play at all.
That sense of community and everyone being there for the same reasons pervades the game's community, and huge credit is owed to developers Rare for keeping it on an even keel.
You just need to watch streams of the game on Mixer or Twitch, or swing by the game's official forums or section on Reddit and you can see the spirit of fun that Rare have been infusing in games for over 30 years has managed to permeate the community.
Combine that with the well-thought out changes being added not just with this expansion but on a weekly basis, and you've got a world of good, dishonest fun just a gust of wind and thrust of a cutlass away.
Sea of Thieves and all it's expansions are available for no extra cost to Xbox Game Pass subscribers. You can play on both PC and Xbox One.
The way it weaves these stories into the open world is key to how good they will feel -- and the team behind the game knows it.
Players have been clamouring for emotionally satisfying stories inside the game's world since it launched, and the team were determined to get it right before launching head-on into it.
As well as being weaved into the open world so they fit into players' own stories, they're more polished and orchestrated than the rest of the game to date.
From the moment you first hear the mysterious strangers husky tones in the tavern before setting off you're going to be pulled along by an enjoyable romp.
Perhaps best of all, though, Tall Tales will provide a great way into the world of Sea of Thieves.
The huge open seas and the freedom they offer can be pretty daunting -- having a proper little story you can sink your teeth into looks like it's going to make an excellent introduction into the world to boot.
Enter the Arena
Then there's the joy of the new Arena mode.
Ship battles have always been part of Sea of Thieves -- what would a pirate game be if you couldn't scutttle your foes and steal their booty? -- but Arena gives them their own space.
Arena matches are a race to see which crew can grab the most loot before a timer expires.
You'll start on identical ships, with identical treasure maps, and battle it out.
How you battle it out is up to you, though.
You'll get points for digging up treasure and cashing it in, as well as getting small bonuses for damage you do to other ships.
You also lose points if you sink, before being dropped back into the world to carry on the hunt.
This makes for a tense and fun fight -- build a lead too early and you may as well paint a bullseye on your mainsail, but keep too much treasure on board and you run the risk of being boarded and having it stolen from under your nose.
Unlike the rest of Sea of Thieves, Arena is a frenetic and quick bite-size experience that you can dip into and out of very easily. There's no lure of the open ocean, no threads to tug on -- just a desire to have one more turn as you try and grab more gold to buy yourself a really silly hat.
As well as the two big updates there are a bunch of little ones too.
You can wile away the hours fishing now, and cook up what you catch for some useful little bonuses.
Ship combat has also got much deeper throughout the world thanks to Arena as well -- you can now knock masts down with a few well-placed cannonballs and make a getaway rather than sinking your opponents, for instance.
Everything we've seen of the anniversary update suggests that there really has never been a better time to take to the high seas.
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