Sea of Thieves is the biggest new Xbox IP of this generation with over 10 million players

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Rare looks back on the pirating life after 22 months

(Image credit: Rare)

Sea of Thieves has reached a lofty new milestone in terms of its ever-growing flotilla of scoundrels, Microsoft and Rare have revealed. The online pirate's-life-for-me simulator has officially racked up more than 10 million players since it first embarked into the well-chummed waters of live service gaming in March 2018. That makes Sea of Thieves the most successful new IP from Xbox this generation, according to a post on the official Xbox blog.

Ten million players is a sum total of everybody who has ever played Sea of Thieves across PC and Xbox One, not active players. However, the game has emerged as one of the stars of Xbox Game Pass, the all-you-can-eat subscription program for Xbox games, which has helped to give it renewed life with each new wave of would-be buccaneers.

"For everyone at Rare, the Sea of Thieves community represents the very best of what gaming can be," executive producer Joe Neate wrote. "It’s home to players from more than 80 different countries, bringing together gamers on Xbox Game Pass, Xbox One, and Windows 10 PC and creating countless stories and moments that people can treasure. Seeing these stories shared through social media or other community spaces is something that inspires the team every day. To every person who’s played Sea of Thieves, thank you."

Though it was sparse on things to do beyond "mess around on a pirate ship" at launch, Sea of Thieves has grown with more missions, more NPC monsters to fight, new PvP modes, and even story-based co-op quests called Tall Tales since then. The next update, called Legends of the Sea, will add new tributes to famed sailors from Sea of Thieves' player community, along with some other quality of life updates to make the metaphorical sailing a little smoother (the literal sailing is already plenty smooth).

Connor Sheridan
Connor Sheridan

I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and was formerly a staff writer at GamesRadar.