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Imagine taking the spirit of adventure from The Goonies, combining it with the immersive shared world experience found in the game Journey, and transplant it to a pirate ship. The result is what Rare is attempting to create with their next major game Sea of Thieves, which is a massive multiplayer pirate game . MMPG is not a recognized term in the gaming world, but it is basically what it sounds like. A group of friends get together on a pirate ship and do pirate things together. This can include exploring the seven seas, going on hunts for buried treasure, going to battle with other pirate ships, or just enjoying a rowdy booze cruise on the ship drinking and making music.

Today Sea of Thieves Lead Designer Mike Chapman posted on the game's forums to give more details on how personal combat with flintlocks, blunderbusses and swords will actually work on Rare's upcoming shared world adventure g

When you think about pirate encounters from books or movies, you tend to think of dynamic encounters in which the crews start by selecting the right tool for the job, but then change their weaponry as the situation changes. We think about this scenario our game using the example of two ships meeting on the sea. In this example, the first thing that is likely to happen is for cannon balls to be exchanged when the ships come into range. Depending on how the crews decide to position the ships, this may lead to the ships getting close enough for players to use personal arms, such as flintlock pistols and the blunderbuss. With our approach to aim down sights, you’d see the some of the rival crew taking aim with their guns as the crews exchange shots between decks, while some players still continue to fire with the cannons. Following this, in the event of one of the crews boarding the other ship, they might then get the opportunity to get a single shot off while standing on the enemy deck, before then being forced into a reload…which is where swords come

For the above to work, we’ve embraced the concept of aiming down sights as a special state – if you want to fire at a target, you must hold the left trigger / right mouse button and aim down the physical barrel of the

Sea of Thieves is primarily about social interaction between the players in the shared world experience. Whether playing with real life friends, regular online gaming partners, or complete strangers, the goal is to interact and work together as a crew. In game ice breakers will be included to help strangers loosen up and bond with each other, an analogy that was given was it is like going to a pub to have a drink and meet new friends.

For someone who was initially miffed about Rare going the way of a massively-multiplayer, online experience — and admittedly heralding a much lower level of excitement as a result — the outcome, after a fair number of days at [virtual] sea in the closed beta, are more upbeat. Albeit, still mixed in a number of ways. Let’s start with the positives and work our way down: Sea of Thieves has a peculiar degree of charm to it. Perhaps not to the same degree of colorful personality of previous titles, but subtly present nonetheless. Anyone who’s followed Rare for a long time will instantly recognize the degree of care and consideration for the details, both grand and minuscule in equal measure. The glare of the sun as you swim your way back to your ship, the ruffle of paper as you scour your chartered map for the desired island to reach; even the way your on-board lanterns flicker and crackle as the waves collide and risk snuffing out the flames.

This one comes with the caveat that nobody really expected Microsoft to have a VR presentation anyways, as the company had attempted to make it very clear that it had no intentions of focusing on Microsoft VR technology when it had a lot of games to show and a new console to finally unv

Of course, the abundance of open water does inevitably lend itself to islands to stop by and pillage – hearkening, of course, to the more casual affairs of Wind Waker and the game does indeed share many similarities — obvious or otherwise, good and bad. But if anything, Sea of Thieves reminds me more so of Jalopy — a rather unexciting-yet-ironically-stimulating simulation of driving one’s car down a highway. And just like that game, there’s an uncanny loft of satisfaction to be had in the mundane and the repetitive. Particularly when you’re lucky enough to land yourself with a crew equally as focused as yourself…and not just there to troll or ruin the fun for everyone's sake, which sadly me and a friend got paired up with on our venturing for treasure. Disappointing as it is for some to play mutiny (albeit unintentionally) and ride your ship away from the island you’re stuck on, perhaps that’s just part of the general risk. After all, this is a game about pirates; just like the Souls games, the anarchy and click unruliness of the real world bleed fittingly into the context of the premise.