10 Ways Rare Can Save Sea Of Thieves
There's too much potential for this NOT to become something special.
Never has there been a game so inviting; so easily loveable and demonstrably capable of nailing a first impression... that completely falls apart after a couple of hours.
Even one of Rare's own ex-artists has recently described what the atmosphere during development was like (see below), noting that progress on the project was incredibly slow and arduous, to say the least. What we have at launch is admittedly a very fun pirate simulator where downing grog, blasting apart rival ships and fighting skeletons is a good laugh... but this base description is literally the entire game.
Alongside a lack of meaningful quest structures or a tangible progression outside of cosmetics is all manner of gameplay annoyances like losing your booty after an attack, suffering lag that separates you from your crew, or being mismatched against more sizeable squads of opponents.
Basically, this is why many outlets are resorting to calling it "no more than 10% of a full game", and although I wouldn't go that far, there are a LOT of improvements that must be made if Sea of Thieves is ever going to truly be worth playing.