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Sea of Thieves will launch with a maximum crew size (and therefore party size) of four.

Lead designer Mike Chapman confirmed to IGN that the party size from the game’s beta would continue into the full game, saying that the key element for Rare was in how larger groups would (or wouldn’t) communicate:

“The biggest ship was designed for four,” Chapman explained when asked why that became the maximum. “We’ve looked at feedback and of course there’s people who want an 8-player ship, a 10-player ship. The thinking there, as with everything in this game, is really intentful.

“If the two of us were to go out to the pub together with two other friends, you’ve got that intimate relationship, you’re all getting on together. If it becomes six or eight people, you start getting people splintering off and it’s really hard to communicate – four seems like the magic number.”

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I’ve put around 25 hours into Kingdom Come: Deliverance so far, and I’m finding plenty to be impressed by. The large chunk of wooded, medieval Bohemia across which the bloody and dramatic story takes place shows significant attention to detail and is filled with little historical touches that help it feel like a real place. Towns, farms, and logging camps are all laid out with a strong internal logic and built on a scale that makes sense, as opposed to the standard RPG city in a game like Skyrim that’s designed to feel large, but really isn’t.

The “open” world isn’t always as open as I’d like it to be. I’ve run into a number of areas with invisible walls where it looks like I should be able to jump up onto a rock ledge, but am stopped from doing so by an immersion-breaking barrier. There’s also a fairly common tendency to use impassible hedgerows to prevent me from sneaking up on a bandit camp or other objective, though that at least seems consistent within the setting. If you’ve ever been out in the deep woods, you’ll know that getting from A to B as the crow flies isn’t always practical.

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Sea of Thieves will launch without microtransactions, but will add them in its first major content update, planned for around three months after release – but they’ll be for cosmetic rewards only, and won’t feature loot boxes.

During a visit to Rare, executive producer Joe Neate told IGN:

“Our focus at launch

on a great game experience. When we deliver this first major update, that’s when we’ll turn on the ability for players to spend money optionally.

“We thought long and hard about what’s right for our game experience, and the key thing we think is that it has to add to the fun, social nature of the game. So anything in this area will not impact power or progression, and you’ll always know what you’re getting – so that means no loot crates.”

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The more we’ve seen of Sea of Thieves, the clearer it’s become that the simple act of playing it will be fun. Its mix of gentle action and almost hardcore seafaring (seriously, you try manning a galleon with three people who don’t know how sails work) is immediately engaging and, more importantly, hilarious.

But what bookends that moment-to-moment play has remained resolutely mysterious since the game’s announcement – how does Sea of Thieves begin, what’s the story, and what are we working towards? After visiting Rare and talking to several of the game’s developers and producers, finally we have some answers.

Let’s begin at the beginning. Sea of Thieves will open with you choosing your pirate. “Choosing” is a deliberate choice of words – this isn’t character customisation. Rare’s made a purposeful decision not to include slider-filled menus. Instead, you begin in a tavern, with eight procedurally-generated pirates to inspect. They’re created based on twenty different parameters – everything from age, to body shape, to overall ‘wonkiness’ (essentially, how asymmetrical they are) – leading to a “practically infinite” number of variations. If you don’t like the 8 you’re shown, you can regenerate another 8 as many times as you like until you find a favourite.

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