A pirate's life for me: Rare's ambitious plans for Sea of Thieves revealed

The Xbox and PC online multiplayer pirate adventure will boast sea monsters and skeleton forts - and this is only the beginning

When the veteran British games studio Rare first revealed Sea of Thieves in 2015, it's fair to say the response was positive. After years spent concentrating on the controversial Kinect device, the creator of luscious SNES and N64 classics Donkey Kong Country and Banjo-Kazooie unveiled an online pirate adventure where groups of friends would set sail on an open ocean, seeking out treasure and doing battle with other player crews. It felt like the beloved developer had truly returned.

Two years later, anticipation remains high. Within five hours of the recent closed beta test going live, it was the most watched game on streaming service Twitch, beating even the mighty League of Legends. In the end, more than 300,000 people signed up to play, spending 2m hours and completing 400,000 quests in the week-long test.