Sea Of Thieves may not have started out as much of a game, but with a lot of love from both the developer and the fans, it has grown into a bustling community of seafarers with lots to keep players busy, including obstacles courses, set up by community members, that challenge every aspect of the players' skills. A group of fans that have been making some ambitious obstacle courses just had their event for their Season 6 course, and it was a huge race with some impressive set-up.
Sea Of Thieves was highly anticipated before its release in 2018. It was developed by Rare, a studio known for big hits like Banjo-Kazooie and Starfox Adventures, so the public's expectations were high. Unfortunately, upon release, the game didn't have much content, disappointing gamers, but since then Rare has been releasing regular updates that have filled the game with so many new features and content that new players might need some help navigating the overflowing open world.
The other players are perhaps what contestants must be most wary of in this race. Dubbed the Race Of Legends, it is a cooperative obstacle course that brings The Amazing Race to a game about pirates. According to Polygon who spoke to the organizer of the event, Dread Pirate Doug, he said that the race tests all basic mechanics including "teamwork, cooperation, communication, up to combat skills, harpooning skills, sailing through an island at high speed, getting a rowboat from an island" and more. The Race Of Legends has come a long way over the years, as the team started off having to spend five hours sailing across the ocean to collect the ships needed for the event, but Rare has now given them access to a private server so that they can focus on setting up some crazy challenges. This event is all livestreamed, and there is even a crew of human-manned cameras racing with the contestants to catch all the action for Twitch viewers.
Fans realized that one of the best parts of Sea Of Thieves is working with a crew to get out of some hot water, and Race Of Legends turned adventures like these into a bit of sport. Past events have involved drinking grog (without being murdered), racing to touch locations around the map, and even succumbing to death as a crew to get to the Ferry Of The Damned. After six seasons the obstacles are really made to make players suffer, like making them climb where no player is supposed to go, catch an aggressive, venomous snake, and make it back to their ships. However, this event went bigger than ever before by bringing the Longest Johns, a band that doles out sea shanties that have become viral on social media, to a musical performance on the day.
Doug and his friends; Mike, Kaitzu, and 0wl, have taken time out of their daily lives to create this treasured project, and each event has an amazing amount of effort and passion put into it for nothing in return but the joy of the race. From the empty game that was first released to the thriving multiplayer that Sea Of Thieves is now, the game has managed to reel in over ten million players, and it proves that the success of a co-op sandbox game like this depends on its community.
Sea Of Thieves is available on PC, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S.
Sources: Polygon, Race Of Legends, Twitter