Sea Of Thieves scores crossover with slightly less relevant pirate IP Pirates Of The Caribbean

As revealed at the Xbox and Bethesda E3 showcase this weekend, Rare's multiplayer open world pirate 'em up Sea Of Thieves is about to have 100% more Jack Sparrow than it previously did. Sea Of Thieves: A Pirate's Life is a new Pirates Of The Caribbean-themed story campaign featuring five Tall Tales, and it's coming free to the game on June 22nd. Why, that's quite soon!

And look, I'm not saying that the Pirates Of The Caribbean films do not form a billion dollar franchise, but when you tell me that Sea Of Thieves is getting the "Why is the rum gone?" man, I know what sort of feels like the better get for whom.

In fairness it is, thematically, a very good pairing, and Jack Sparrow isn't the only PotC person or place to feature in the game. He is the one who actually sets sail with you, so it looks like he'll be the most constant presence. But apart from him, there's Davey Jones and his big fishy ship, a skeleton that sounds a lot like Captain Barbossa, and locations drawn from both the series of films and the theme park ride that they're based on.

A Pirate's Life is the "headline feature" of Season Three, which introduces new enemies types including angry mermaids the Sirens, angry ghosts the Phantoms, and angry oyster boys the Ocean Crawlers.

Tall Tales DLCs insert bits of story into Sea Of Thieves, which is otherwise a PvEvP multiplayer game. The TTs are typically about hunting for some kind of old and magical treasure, and you can play through them a bit at a time and at your own place thanks to a robust checkpointing system. Previous Tall Tale collections are Shores Of Gold and Ashen Age, the latter being very hot and flamey.

Sea Of Thieves is a rollicking good time with friends, although I mostly like playing by myself in a sloop, sailing around at night on the extremely good sea that Rare have made. I am usually sunk by a four person galleon, which seems quite unsporting. If you've not yet had a go I would recommend it - it's on Xbox Game Pass, which is still running the 3 months for a £1 promo for the Ultimate version. And in about a week that'll include Jack Sparrow. I hope in future we see more Disney crossovers with Sea Of Thieves, like a Loki cosmetics pack or etc.

E3 2021 runs June 12th-15th, with more events around it. Please see our E3 stream schedule for more, genuinely useful information on the whole virtual shebang, and visit our E3 2021 hub to stay up to date on the news.