Sea Of Thieves Seeing "Unprecedented" Demand, Passes 1 Million Players

Sea of Thieves is immensely popular--and that's part of the reason why the game is having widespread technical issues. In a developer update, Rare studio head Craig Duncan and executive producer Joe Neate discussed the game's problems and what's being done to fix them. They also revealed that the Xbox One and PC game reached 1 million players in its first 48 hours.

"We have seen unprecedented numbers coming in to Sea of Thieves and playing Sea of Thieves. The interest has been insane; the amount of people playing has been mind-blowing," Neate said.

Sea of Thieves is free for Xbox Game Pass subscribers. Microsoft has not shared any details on how many people bought the game outright versus those who picked it up with a Game Pass subscription. Additionally, Microsoft offers a 14-day free Game Pass trial, and we don't know how many people are playing Sea of Thieves on that trial. Whatever the case, 1 million players in 48 hours is a huge figure, and it has surely only grown higher still.

In the video, Duncan says an engineer told him that at one point near launch on March 20, some 5,000 people were joining the game every minute. Rare held multiple scale tests for Sea of Thieves before launch, but the live game is seeing 3-4 times more people trying to play during peak times than during the tests. Many of the game's problems now are scale-related, and Duncan stressed that Rare has engineers working 24/7 to fix the issues and improve the experience.

A massive update for Sea of Thieves dropped today, and it includes various fixes for the game's online infrastructure. You can see the full patch notes here in GameSpot's previous coverage.

GameSpot's Sea of Thieves review scored the pirate game a 6/10. Reviewer Peter Brown said, "Even though it's hard to wholeheartedly recommend, I like enough of what I see to hold out hope that things will eventually improve as the game continues to be patched and updated with new content.

For more on Sea of Thieves, including some tips for getting started, check out the linked stories below.

• Sea Of Thieves Beginner's Guide: Tips To Get Started
• Sea Of Thieves Death Penalty Won't Be Implemented After All
• Sea Of Thieves Update Released; Here Are The Patch Notes