Watch the premiere of Sea of Thieves gameplay

Rare's Sea of Thieves was finally on display at Microsoft's E3 presser. A new montage showed shark, ship battles, mer-people, skeletons with swords, hidden treasure—every sort of pirate-y thing you could think up. It's definitely setting out to fulfill a specific fantasy. 

Next up was a short gameplay montage starring a few streamers, embedded above. The crew teamed up on a ship and proceeded to quickly get drunk on grog before piloting a ship through dangerous rock formations and engaging in a chaotic flanking ship battle on the open sea. 

One player piloted the ship, others manned cannons, some called out enemy positions—it seems like a pretty cool way to hang out with friends. 

During the battle, water filled the bottom of the boat, and one player attempted to patch the holes, alas, to no avail. Piloting one of those suckers quite literally requires all hands on deck. The montage capped off with one ship spearing another, cutting off before the catastrophic conclusion. 

It's hard to say exactly what Sea of Thieves lets you do beyond piloting ships. I'm sure there's buried treasure to discover, but how exactly that comes about, and what kind of play that entails is still buried treasure itself. 

James Davenport

James is stuck in an endless loop, playing the Dark Souls games on repeat until Elden Ring and Silksong set him free. He's a truffle pig for indie horror and weird FPS games too, seeking out games that actively hurt to play. Otherwise he's wandering Austin, identifying mushrooms and doodling grackles. 

Latest in Action
A long bendy arm stealing money from people in a subway car
'You're a very long arm. You steal things. It's a comedy game,' explains developer of comedy game where you steal things with a very long arm
The First Berserker: Khazan review - Blade Phantom
How to claim The First Berserker: Khazan pre-order bonus and deluxe edition DLC
gta 6 trailer
Publishers 'don't want to be anywhere near' Grand Theft Auto 6 when it launches: 'It's proving to be very stressful'
An image of a Helldiver from Helldivers 2 shooting at a red dragon from Dungeons & Dragons.
'Ok, so dragon builds are a thing now': galaxy-brained Helldivers 2 player incinerates a bile titan with a hover pack and a flamethrower
Assassin's Creed Shadows promo image
Ubisoft scores a legendary ratio against Elon Musk on his own platform—which hopefully marks a final end to all the Assassin's Creed Shadows' culture war nonsense
Assassin's Creed Shadows immersive mode - Naoe holding a tanto in her hand as two guards fall to the ground behind her.
Assassin's Creed Shadows' first hotfix addresses stability issues and a photo mode crash
Latest in News
Two brightly colored stormtroopers dressed like Run-DMC stand in front of PAX Australia's WELCOME HOME banner.
Tickets for PAX Australia 2025 are on sale now
An Enshrouded player in a recreation of Erebor from The Lord of the Rings
Kings under the Mountain! 33 Enshrouded players spent 10,000 hours to recreate this iconic location from The Lord of the Rings
A mech awakens.
Mecha Break developer is considering unlocking all mechs following open beta feedback
Lara Croft Unified Art
Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics lays off 17 employees 'to better align our current business needs and the studio's future success'
A long bendy arm stealing money from people in a subway car
'You're a very long arm. You steal things. It's a comedy game,' explains developer of comedy game where you steal things with a very long arm
The heroes are attacked by monsters
Pillars of Eternity is getting turn-based combat to mark its 10th anniversary, and that means PC Gamer editors will soon be arguing about combat mechanics again