Rare Announces Next Alpha Test for Sea of Thieves and Upcoming Improvements (VIDEO)
Since its first announcement at E3 in 2015, Sea of Thieves has gained quite the following of eager fans who await its final launch with excited anticipation. Sea of Thieves promises an open world adventure unlike any we’ve seen before. Set in a oceanic world of swashbuckling pirates and buccaneers, Sea of Thieves takes its players on epic quests for loot as you hunt down buried treasure, explore fascinating islands and archipelagos, and seek out fame and fortune on the high seas. Just a few short months ago, Sea of Thieves saw its first alpha test phase and now, after the feedback from the fans, Rare is gearing up for round 2 of the testing phase with the new 0.1.1 alpha.
With the first closed alpha, Rare invited 1,000 lucky gamers to experience the wide world of Sea of Thieves, and now with the results of the first testing phase – Rare has set out to make the game even better for round two. Sea of Thieves has seen a few improvements since the last alpha test and in a recent game-play trailer, they give us a quick peek at some of the improvements that they have made.
The first considerable change made was to expand the size of the accessible map areas, or in other words, they made it bigger. Of course by making the map bigger this allowed for more locations to be added, more ocean, more islands, more ports, more treasure. This is excellent news. It would seem that one of the biggest complaints from the first alpha test was that with a limited number of locations in which to make port, so as to actually profit from all your piratey plundering, it was easy for players to set up ambushes and ‘gank’ all that hard earned pirate swag. That’s no good. Any dishonest pirate knows that if you’re too predictable, you’ll most likely end up swinging from the yardarms!
Of course making the game bigger doesn’t necessarily make the game easier, it just makes it more complex for would be treasure ‘gankers.’ Speaking of not making things easier, the next significant change we see made is the addition of more frequent skeletal enemies. Finding the buried treasure and hauling it off to get rich is great and all, but wheres the challenge? Hiding under the sand, that’s where! Making an entrance by popping out of the sand in Sea of Thieves is a new ‘skeletal army.’ So now you not only have to hunt down the treasure and try to safely get it across the sea to profit from your adventuring, but you’ll also have to contend against the hoards of long dead piratey skeletons as they attempt to shanghai your hard earned booty. Be sure to keep a weathered eye out for any dead fellows wielding rusty blunderbusses and cutlasses, or you may just end up joining their ghastly crew!
This new larger open world as well as the hoards of undead fiendish fellows and more can all be seen explained in the new game-play trailer from Rare’s Sea of Thieves, check it out!
Microsoft and Rare plan to release Sea of Thieves sometime this year for both the Xbox One and PC. No specific date has been announced thus far. Until then, check out the Sea of Thieves Insider if you want to take a chance on getting in on a test phase invite.
Are you super excited to sail the seas and collect pirate booty? We sure are! Be sure to drop us a line in the comments or join in on our geeky conversations with our new Disqus Channel and let us what you look forward to most. If you liked this, check out what else we at Don’t feed the Gamers have to offer in the way of gaming news below, and be sure to follow us on Twitter for around the clock updates. Until next time, keep a weathered eye on the horizon for there be pirates in these waters!
Luciano Cancilla106 Posts
Luciano has an undeniable passion for all things BioWare and has an enthusiastic perspective on the Gaming Industry. With a love for gaming, comics, and Geek Culture, you can always expect to have a good time nerding out.
