The ambitious live service pirate game by Rare, Sea Of Thieves, has just reached 15 million total players. One of the first major first party titles to get a simultaneous release at retail and on Xbox Game Pass, Sea Of Thieves had a rocky launch. Microsoft had purchased the studio in 2002, and were mostly relegated to Kinect games until moving on to develop this new pirate-themed IP in an attempt to return to form.

Rare is celebrating 15 million total pirates sailing the seas, swashbuckling, and hunting treasures. Sea Of Thieves has been drawing in more players year over year since it first launched in 2018. In 2020 alone, the game has seen a 5 million player increase, which already puts the game’s growth ahead of what it saw in the entirety of 2019.

Joe Neate shared in a blog post on Xbox Wire that this past June was the biggest month for the game since launch, with 3.3 million new players logging in during that 30-day period. This was also the month the game launched on Steam, selling over 1 million copies.

Neate concludes his blog post stating, “On behalf of all of us at Rare, I’d like to say a big thank you to everyone who’s ever played Sea of Thieves for helping to get us this far. It’s a game that we love making, and there’s plenty more to come.”

One of the major criticisms levied at Sea Of Thieves when it first launched was a lack of content and variety in gameplay. While there are still some features and updates that players would like to see, Rare has certainly worked to turn the narrative around. Multiple content updates and support have expanded the world and amount to do and see within it, and according to what Neate wrote, they aren’t going to be stopping soon.

Because of how we understand backwards compatibility to work on the upcoming Series X consoles, we know that Sea Of Thieves will be getting a free enhancement for anyone looking to continue their pirate adventuring on next gen. There have been some teases, but nothing about how the game will be enhanced has been officially stated just yet. Considering the game can already run at 4K and has HDR support, an improved frame rate may be a safe bet.

Source: Eurogamer