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Sea Of Thieves Hits 15 Million Player Milestone 2 Years After Launch
Sea of Thieves has reached 15 million total players two years after its launch on Xbox One in March 2018. Sea of Thieves wasn’t very well received upon its release, but has steadily expanded its audience as updates improved and added content to the high-seas adventure.
Three years after it was revealed, Sea of Thieves hit choppy waters right at the start when it had major server issues during its launch week, and things didn’t get much better from there. The game was slammed for being shallow and repetitive, but its developers stuck by it and continued to add content. Free updates brought sea monsters, a dedicated PvP arena, and better ways for players to team up together. By the time Sea of Thieves launched on Steam this year, the game was in much better shape than it had been for its early Xbox One players.
It seems that that persistence is paying off, as developer Rare says via Xbox Wire that 15 million people have now played Sea of Thieves. The game’s arrival on Steam appears to be a big part of hitting that milestone, with 1 million copies sold on the platform since it became available in June. Xbox One players also seem to have gotten back on board that month, as Sea of Thieves saw its most active users ever, at 3.3 million. As a whole, 2020 has been good to Sea of Thieves, with 5 million of its 15 million total players joining the game since January.
In addition to Steam, Sea of Thieves may have Xbox Game Pass to thank for a large part of its success. Long before its recent spree of studio acquisitions, Microsoft brought Rare into its line of Xbox Game Studios, putting Sea of Thieves in position to get a huge potential audience through Xbox’s game subscription service. As it continues to update Sea of Thieves, Rare is also working on new exclusives for Xbox, including Everwild, a project revealed last year that little is known about yet.
It’s clear that Sea of Thieves wasn’t in quite the shape that its developers would have liked at launch, but Rare’s decision to keep working on it rather than abandon ship is paying off. Sea of Thieves’ recent updates have made it a much more compelling game than it was at one time, rewarding veteran players and giving new ones more reason to sign on, whether that’s through Xbox or Steam.
Sea of Thieves is available now on Xbox One and PC.
