The Sea of Thieves closed beta set sail yesterday, but intermittent server issues prevented some early-bird pirates from joining in on the action. Today, Rare took down the beta for a short time while the studio addressed the problem. The Sea of Thieves beta is now back up once again, with Rare stating most of the gamers who were receiving the "too early" error message should now be able to properly join the high seas. However, those who pre-ordered the title in the last 24 hours have an extra hoop to jump through before they can guzzle some grog with their mates.

Those who've made a recent pre-order will still get the "too early" message when they attempt to join. To fix this, they need to go to the Xbox Insider Hub on either Xbox One or PC. There, they can select the Sea of Thieves Closed Beta (which should appear once the game itself has been pre-ordered). Once this step is completed, players should be able to launch the title and bypass any "too early" error messages entirely.

Since the unexpected errors have prevent many users from entering the game, Rare has officially extended the beta for another two days to make up for lost time.  The original closed beta run was expected to end on Monday, January 29, 2018, but will instead run to the end of the month and conclude on January 31st. This should give players ample time to complete several treasure-hunting voyages and decide if Rare's multiplayer world is a good fit for them.

In Sea of Thieves, players join a small pirate crew and accept contracts from a variety of groups. All of the open world is immediately accessible, so players are free to explore to their hearts' content. Players will soon discover that navigating the seas is a dangerous job filled with sunken wrecks, hostile encampments, and other rival players popping up all over the world. Players can also do typical pirate activities like drink grog, play musical jingles, and eat bananas from the stem first.

Source: GameSpot