Rare announced Sea of Thieves: A Pirate's Life at E3 this weekend, creating a wave of excitement among fans of the movies and game alike. The new expansion is a crossover with Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean, adding new Tall Tales, monsters, and Jack Sparrow himself to the popular pirate multiplayer.
Pirates of the Caribbean transformed the place of piracy in modern pop culture, creating a world where every maritime myth exists and breathing new life into a genre that some thought was forever lost at sea. This gives Sea of Thieves: A Pirate's Life some of the most famous pirate characters and monsters from recent years to add to the game, setting high expectations among players.
Monsters And Boss Fights
The new expansion will see Jack Sparrow trapped in the Sea of the Damned, the game's world of the dead and a place most Sea of Thieves players will be all too familiar with. According to Rare creative director Mike Chapman when speaking to Variety, this plot premise will allow players to "explore some of the moments from his life," opening the door for returning characters and monsters from across the movie series.
Many of the monsters in Sea of Thieves already draw on ideas made popular in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, from skeleton crews to the kraken. A tougher kraken fight with a version of the creature based even more closely on the monster from the movies seems like a no-brainer, though less likely to add as much variety to the game as some of Pirates of the Caribbean's other offerings. The hostile mermaids from On Stranger Tides could be a great twist on Sea of Thieves' usually helpful merfolk, catching players off-guard when they attempt to swim between ships or capture cargo in the open ocean. This seems to be the inspiration behind the Sirens, a new monster type.
The trailer for A Pirate's Life already shows a clam-headed monster attacking a player, likely based on the hybrid men in Davy Jones' crew in the movies. It would be great to see Jones' crewmen act more aggressively than a normal skeleton ship, using their aquatic advantage to swim underneath and board player ships among other unexpected behavior.
Davy Jones' ship, the Flying Dutchman, looks to be one of the most visually impressive additions coming with the expansion. While the Flying Dutchman should be a very intimidating boss battle, hopefully it's also treated like a real ship in the game to a greater degree than most boss fights, even if it's far tougher to sink. If players can pull it off, the Flying Dutchman should be vulnerable to the same shenanigans as every other ship in Sea of Thieves from dropping explosives in the hold to destroying the masts. Most of Sea of Thieves' boss fights like Flameheart have mechanics that don't encourage the same thinking as the game's multiplayer encounters. Hopefully, Davy Jones' ship and his crew are able to keep players on their toes.
Missions And Multiplayer
Sea of Thieves: A Pirate's Life has the potential to be more story-driven than anything seen in the game so far. Rare will have to strike a careful balance if Jack Sparrow is going to fit into Sea of Thieves' often-chaotic multiplayer world, but A Pirate's Life's missions offer exciting opportunities for Sea of Thieves to explore some of the movies' most memorable locations.
Many fans will be excited to see pirate haven Tortuga and Port Royal brought to life in-game. If the expansion has players return to different moments from the movies, the pirate attack on Port Royal from Curse of the Black Pearl, the kraken attack at the end of Dead Man's Chest, and Davy Jones' locker from At World's End all seem like natural choices.
The trailer already shows Jack, Gibbs, and Davy Jones returning. Hopefully the characters do more than parrot their lines from the films, with A Pirate's Life aiming to do more with its story than just replay scenes from the movies. If Jack is trapped in the Sea of the Damned, for example, players could finally learn more about the Ferryman.
Many players will also be hoping that the locations they get to visit in the expansion will be available as part of the multiplayer map in Sea of Thieves' adventure mode in some way. Players should be able to fight over Tortuga when they aren't with Captain Jack, or use the canons on the walls of Port Royal to fire at rival crews on the horizon.
Pets And Cosmetics
Sea of Thieves rarely misses an opportunity for silliness, and its unlikely A Pirate's Life will be an exception. Players will be hoping to play the Pirates of the Caribbean theme on their in-game instruments as they take on Davy Jones. New pets could include Jack the monkey - undead form optional - Cotton's Macaw, and the Port Royal prison dog from the movies.
Cosmetics are a huge part of Sea of Thieves, helping players show off to one another in a game that doesn't allow players to buff their ships' stats. Although the clothes and other cosmetics available in Sea of Thieves cover a huge amount of pirate tropes already, the Pirates of the Caribbean crossover still brings up some unique possibilities.
Hopefully Rare will include some of the iconic outfits from the movies, and the mutations of Davy Jones' crew could add a whole new cosmetic category. Players could have one arm replaced with a tentacle, they could have barnacles growing up their faces or a crab-claw for a hand. These options could extend to ship customization as well, letting players create their own version of the Black Pearl or even the Flying Dutchman to strike fear into any other crew unlucky enough to encounter them when Sea of Thieves: A Pirate's Life sets sail.
Sea of Thieves: A Pirate's Life will release June 22, 2021, on PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.