Like a siren’s song, Sea of Thieves is continuing to draw in an audience. Developer Rare’s pirate-adventure simulator has had more than 15 million players since its debut in March 2018. But the game isn’t trickling over that milestone. Instead, it’s coming off its best month ever.
In June, Sea of Thieves had more than 3.3 million active players. In a note to players, Sea of Thieves executive producer Joe Neate pointed to the launch on Steam as a major driver of the game’s growth:
June 2020 – was also the biggest month so far for Sea of Thieves in terms of active players, with more than 3.3M players setting sail. A contributing factor to this growth has been our recent launch on Steam. We’ve been blown away by the support we’ve seen from the Steam community, with over 1M copies of the game having been sold so far and the game regularly appearing in the top selling and most played games charts.
But while Steam is helping, Rare is ensuring the game stays relevant through regular updates. This follows the trajectory of other popular live-service games that slowly grow over months and years.
In the case of Sea of Thieves, however, it’s not all that slow. Rare announced only in January that Sea of Thieves surpassed 10 million players. So it has added another 5 million in the six months since then.
Of course, Sea of Thieves is also part of Xbox Game Pass. This means you can play it as part of Microsoft’s subscription service without having to buy it separately. And the game’s growth is proving that is working.
And Rare says it’s dedicated to adding even more to its high-seas pirating adventure. That should set it on a course for 20 million players and beyond.