9 2018 Video Games That Wasted Their Biggest Selling Points

2. No Meaningful Quests & Minimal Pirate-Themed Interactions - Sea Of Thieves

Another for the "So close, and yet so far" pile, Sea of Thieves is Rare's first new IP since 2010's Kinect Sports. Naturally all eyes were on the creatives that brought us everything from Perfect Dark to Conker, and yet... Sea of Thieves is so strangely empty.

Yes, you can posse up and pilot a ship by manually raising/lowering the sails, marking Xs on maps and fighting other players with cannons and swords, but the mission structure? It feels like an afterthought.

Sans the bevy of expansions Rare have put out since, Sea of Thieves' entire gamut of mission types boils down to "Go to X, kill X creature", or "Go to X, retrieve X item".

That's it.

Nothing where playing as a squad actually matters, nothing where intricate level layouts deliver meaningful experiences. Nothing other than fetch quests, and even then, you can be robbed of your treasure or shot full of holes on the way back to your mission-giver, making every mission a complete waste of time.

Maybe, maybe that's the "pirate life" Rare were seeking to emulate, but when the rest of the game is so damn charming and inviting, it's such a gut-punch to find there's nothing gameplay-related that holds up.