Rare addresses Sea of Thieves launch issues in video update

While Sea of Thieves has so far been a great success for Rare and Microsoft in terms of player counts, the game's launch didn't end up going as smoothly as planned. There were plenty of issues affecting the game's online components at launch, and now, Rare has addressed them in a 10-minute developer diary.

The developer update is presented by Rare Studios head, Craig Duncan and Sea of Thieves executive producer, Joe Neate. During the video, the pair note that while Rare did host a series of large scale alpha and beta tests, the day-one player count for Sea of Thieves ended up being up to four times larger than expected. At one point, more than 5,000 people were logging on to the game per minute, which put a huge strain on matchmaking systems.

Currently, Sea of Thieves operates with two matchmaking processes, the first step will matchmake you with a crew of players and the second step will matchmake your crew against others currently sailing the seas. Those looking to play immediately can bypass one of these matchmaking processes by joining an existing in-game crew instead of going solo.

Aside from matchmaking issues, Sea of Thieves players found that in-game rewards and achievements were also delayed. Rare says that in these instances, its best to just keep playing and reward alerts will eventually be delivered.

These are just work-arounds for players in the meantime. Patches are on the way to address problems, the first of which will hopefully arrive sometime in the next few days.

KitGuru Says: I haven't had a chance to play much Sea of Thieves yet, but I am hoping to jump on over the weekend with a few friends. Have many of you tried out the game already? Have you run into any problems?

Become a Patron!