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‘Sea of Thieves’ is coming to Steam with crossplay
Microsoft's buccaneering simulator, Sea of Thieves, already has 10 million players on Xbox One and Windows 10. The company announced that the game is coming soon to Steam, adding to an already large stable of Microsoft games on Valve's platform, and allowing existing Steam users to connect more easily with friends. The game, which was developed by Rare, challenges players to complete voyages across the open seas. What makes things more interesting is the fact that crews can run into pirate ships manned by other gamers -- and attempt to plunder their booty.
Ubisoft delays 'Skull and Bones' until at least mid-2020
We hope you didn't base your gaming calendar around Skull and Bones, the other multiplayer-focused pirate title. Ubisoft has revealed that the game has been delayed again, this time until sometime after the company's fiscal 2019-2020 (that is, after March 2020). The game won't be showed at E3 2019, either. The company didn't go into great detail explaining the move, although producer Karl Luhe noted in an explanatory video that the team was focused on "quality first."
‘Sea of Thieves’ could learn a thing or two from ‘No Man’s Sky’
The second Sea of Thieves campaign-slash-major update hit Xboxes and PCs last week, and it is, in a word, dull. Cursed Sails isn't too dissimilar from the first campaign, The Hungering Deep, in that the main quest is basically just a case of sailing from island to island to find the next clue. The new equivalent of the boss battle is identical in many ways, too. It's not so much a challenge as it is simply showing up with enough resources to keep your shift afloat, crew alive and cannons firing until you inevitably win. Alongside the humdrum quest, though, are several meaningful updates to the core game. There's positive growth here, and as No Man Sky's NEXT update has shown, continually adding content and making serious changes to a game people were initially disappointed with can eventually pay off. But, five months on, Sea of Thieves still needs more.
The debut 'Sea of Thieves' campaign almost makes it fun again
Sea of Thieves was an opportunity for Microsoft and studio Rare to do something completely new. The multiplayer pirate simulator promised endless hours of entertainment. A sandbox world steeped in lore in which you make your own adventures. But upon the game's release in March this year, the internet was befuddled, asking the question: Is this really it? There just didn't seem to be that much to do, but Sea of Thieves was always supposed to follow the "game as a service" model of trickling in new content. That starts with The Hungering Deep campaign that beached earlier this week in a flawed but potentially important step in re-injecting some semblance of fun into the game.
‘Sea of Thieves’ will live or die by how its world grows
Sea of Thieves is unquestionably an absolute blast to play. It unashamedly embraces every seafarer cliché and trope so you can live out all your pirate fantasies, just without the sunburn, scurvy and missing appendages. You can down grog until you puke, take to the open ocean in search of treasure or conflict and, when you lose a cannon fight, play a mournful tune with your fellow scallywags as you go down with your galleon. But Sea of Thieves isn't supposed to be a game you spend a few fun evenings playing before forgetting it just as quickly. Developer Rare envisions its core audience spending hundreds if not thousands of hours plundering this new world. If that's going to be the case, though, it has to grow to be twice the title it is today.
'Skull and Bones' is about pillaging your friends' ships
Pirates are back. As the Pirates of the Caribbean movie juggernaut refuses to let Jonny Depp rest for more than a year or two, Ubisoft's Skull and Bones takes the ship battles of Assassin's Creed: Black Flag and turns them into grand-scale, five-on-five multiplayer naval warfare. It'll be a standalone title when it launches in 2018, but ahead of open-beta testing, I got to enjoy some demo time at E3. Caution: slightly shallow gameplay waters ahead.
'Skull & Bones' takes open world online gaming to the high seas
Ubisoft Singapore just announced its next game here at E3 2017, called Skull & Bones. It challenges players to rise to the rank of ultimate pirate kingpin while playing with their friends and against their enemies in an online open world. During the conference, the developers showed off 5-on-5 multiplayer, as ships jostled about in combat and, eventually, escaped with their ill-gotten loot. If this sounds familiar, it's because the team previously worked on the ocean gameplay in Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag. According to the game's description, you set sail on the Indian Ocean, amass a fleet and ally with other pirate captains to form gangs. Your character refused a king's a pardon and sailed from the Caribbean to hijack trading ships and take down your rivals. Since many people thought ACIV's ocean-going sections were the best part, there's a lot to be excited about here. Interested gamers can sign up for more information on the upcoming beta test right here, although, with a fall 2018 release window, you're probably in for a wait.
Facebook creators will profit from people stealing videos
Facebook's video platform has grown like a weed, mainly thanks to auto-plays and a significant rise in accounts presenting other people's work as their own. In 2015, the company introduced a video matching system aimed at curbing the practice, and now it's taking that one step forward with the promise that original video creators can profit when other people pirate their creations.
UK police bust 'significant' pirate pay-TV streaming ring
The City of London Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) is claiming another small victory in the never-ending and probably unwinnable war against piracy. Following a series of dawn raids at several business and residential addresses in Lancashire, the fuzz has reportedly brought down a large-scale illegal TV streaming operation. While it's not unusual to hear about the seizure of modified set-top boxes that tap into pirate pay-TV streams, officers have landed themselves a much bigger fish this time around, also discovering 15 satellites and recovering over 30 servers.
Pirates hacked a shipping firm to find boats to raid
Seaborne pirates just borrowed a page from their land-based counterparts. A Verizon security report has revealed that raiders hacked a shipping company's content management system to determine which ships were worth boarding, and where the valuable cargo was located. They not only knew when to launch a raid, but the exact crates they had to pry open -- they could get in, steal the cargo they want and leave without the risk of a days-long, Captain Philips-style hostage situation.
uTorrent offers ad-free option for $5 a year
uTorrent recently opted to monetize with ads, but it turns out that pirates hate those as much as paying for content. Now, parent BitTorrent is trying something else -- offering a subscription to eliminate ads for $5 per year. That may not seem like much, but uTorrent has over 150 million users, so even if a small chunk of them opted to pay, it could generate millions in cash. (To be fair, torrents can be used for legal purposes, like streaming US election coverage.)
Social media led police straight to movie pirates
How can law enforcement agencies track down some of the world's most (in)famous pirates? The same way that we find out how our school frenemies are doing: stalking them on social media. TorrentFreak has investigated the recent convictions of three of the UK's biggest file-sharers to learn how exactly they were caught. It turns out that copyright enforcement officials are doing the same sort of armchair-sleuthing that we all do, only that they've got a hotline straight to the police.
'League of Legends' pirate Gangplank is dead; long live Gangplank
Gangplank is dead. Riot, the developer of League of Legends, took an unprecedented move this week and killed off one of its champions, the pirate Gangplank. He's completely unavailable in the game right now, even for people who have thrown down real money for skins. Gangplank's surprising death came as part of the Bilgewater event, which builds up the lore in League of Legends' more pirate-y champions, including Gangplank and his apparent assassin, Miss Fortune. "We encourage all Gangplank fans to remain calm for a few days until we can fully assess the situation," Riot writes. "At this time we are not addressing refund requests for him or his skins but please know that over the next several days we'll do our best to make things right for everyone." The fact that Riot has killed a champion and isn't offering refunds to dedicated players suggests that a larger plot is afoot. What do you think Riot plans to do with Gangplank, now that he's taken a long walk off of his own, short plank?
Rare's next game is 'Sea of Thieves' for Xbox One and Windows 10
Rare isn't just banking on 30 years of nostalgia; it has a brand-new franchise on the way called Sea of Thieves. Announced today for Xbox One and Windows 10, it's looking like the pirate sim we didn't get from Assassin's Creed. Rare described the game as its most ambitious effort ever, as the player dives in first-person to a shared adventure. As one would expect from Rare, it's all very stylized and cartoony, which you can get a good look at via the trailer (embedded after the break.) There's no word yet on a release date, but we'll be looking for it on the show floor and you can sign up for more updates on the official website.
Trove adds pirates and promotes pets
Yesterday was a fairly important update for the blocky world of Trove, as the new patch introduced genuine, bonafide pirates to the game. Players can now hunt down pirate ships to plunder them for goods while looking forward to future sea-themed updates. Also notable in the patch is that player pets have been promoted to allies. It's not just a name change, either; allies have "extra special powers" that can be used to help players in their journeys. Check out the patch notes for the full details.
The Talos Principle traps pirates in an elevator
Claustrophobic pirates, beware: Anyone who illegally downloads The Talos Principle will be trapped in an elevator early in the game, with no way to progress. Developer Croteam and publisher Devolver Digital tweeted links to a NeoGAF thread featuring a screencap of a post titled "Elevator doesn't work!" on The Talos Principle's Steam forum. The first response to the thread reads, "Congratulations you must be the first one to show to the internet world what Croteam did this time to punish pirates :) You should be proud of yourself, it will be all over the internet in about 30 minutes I'd say." Well played, @Croteam. Well played. http://t.co/jHO3BiQoPN pic.twitter.com/UYfYXPlbrH - Devolver Digital (@devolverdigital) December 28, 2014 Croteam previously deterred pirates from fully enjoying Serious Sam 3: BFE with an immortal, speedy, rifle-wielding, giant scorpion. The elevator trick, while more subtle, appears to be similarly effective. We discussed The Talos Principle's surprisingly emotive philosophy on episode 126 of the Super Joystiq Podcast. [Image: Devolver Digital]
Wizard101 and Pirate101 rack up 50 million players combined
The Spiral, KingsIsle's online universe, is one of the most underrated success stories in the MMO genre. After six years of operation, Wizard101 (and its spin-off Pirate101) have tallied up over 50 million lifetime players (that's total players ever). The big numbers don't stop there, either. These two games have seen more than 1.46 trillion gold earned, 2.1 billion quests completed, and 3 million player homes inhabited. One pet-happy player even collected 4,986 companions and thus earned a place in the history books. To celebrate the milestone, KingsIsle is giving away a free monolith housing item in both Wizard101 and Pirate 101. You can check out more crazy numbers in the infographic after the break.
Far Cry 4 creative director sends a message in a bottle to pirates
Alex Hutchinson, creative director at Ubisoft Montreal, tweeted a message today to people having difficulties with the field of view in Far Cry 4 on PC. PC players! If you're online complaining about the lack of FOV control ... You pirated the game. - Alex Hutchinson (@BangBangClick) November 18, 2014 Oh, snap. [Image: Ubisoft]
Steam sales arrrrr pirate-themed today
Ahoy, ye scurvy dogs! In honor of National Talk Like A Pirate Day, the landlubbers over at Valve have instituted a sale on pirate-themed games via Steam. Monkey Island, Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag, the Risen series and more all get their chance to come aboard your Internet-sailing vessel. Even space pirates - distant cousins though they may be - have slashed their prices with the buccaneer blade of savings. Aye, tis a good thing. Ye'll have to be quick to snag these beasties though, me lads and lasses; at the time of this decree, there be just more than a day's worth of hours left on these sales. Avast and draw the main sail; set course for Steam! [Image: Ubisoft]
The 5 best iOS apps for International Talk Like A Pirate Day
Ahoy, mateys! In case you hadn't caught wind of today's significance, let me be the one to welcome you aboard: Today is International Talk Like A Pirate Day! If you'd like to participate, feel free to make horrible puns (as I've been doing all day) and enjoy some of the best pirate-themed games currently available for your iPhone or iPad. Arrrrrrrrrre ya with me? (Sorry, I'll stop now) Sid Meier's Pirates! ($4.99) - A classic game that got a whole new lease on life thanks to the iPad, Pirates! is a fantastic action game that offers a nostalgic feel that might just bring a tear to your eye. They don't make games like this anymore. Assassin's Creed Pirates (Free) - A surprisingly competent spin-off of the console-borne Assassin's Creed francise, Pirates makes the open sea your battleground. The game looks absolutely gorgeous on Retina displays and while the character development is a bit weak, the fast-paced naval action makes up for it. The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition ($2.99) - This point-and-click adventure game has a fantastic story and loveable characters, not to mention great touch-based click controls that are a joy to use. The game originally appeared on PC many years ago, but the iOS version is absolutely worth your time whether you've experienced the adventure before or not. Pirates Journey: Into the Caribbean (Free) - What do pirates have to do with a tower defense game? Who cares?! Build your defenses and push back your enemies in this lighthearted strategy game with great graphics and obnoxious characters. Crimson: Sea Pirates (Free) - Steampunk ships and 24 different voyages tell an intriguing tale set on the high seas in Crimson. The game's turn-based gameplay is both strategic and action-oriented and will keep you busy for short bursts and long play sessions alike. [Photo credit: Peasap]
