Sea of Thieves is already a hit, but Microsoft needs to make it a success

Sea of Thieves buzz is hot coming out of its closed beta on Xbox One and Windows 10. It had one of the biggest audiences on livestreaming sites like Twitch and Mixer over the last week, and a huge number of people seem excited for its March 20 release.

The online cooperative pirate simulator from developer Rare and publisher Microsoft had a closed beta that ran through January 31. It’s simultaneously realistic and a cartoonish as players work together to adjust sail length to catch the wind but can also get shot out of a canon to fly through the air. That is a winning combination, whether you’re playing with friends or strangers (with headsets and a vocabulary bigger than racial epithets).