Sea of Thieves review on PS5 — Sail across platforms

It’s still strange to be playing Xbox games on PlayStation. Not because they run poorly or look bad. In fact it’s actually the opposite—Sea of Thieves is incredible on PS5. So much so it might be the best console version now. It runs at a consistent 60 frames per second and looks crisp and colorful in motion. Of course, it’s difficult to beat most PC versions given their higher upper limits and customizability, but Sea of Thieves on PS5 comes close.

First things first: you are required to sign into a Microsoft account and subscribe to PlayStation Plus in order to play. Without both of those things, the game is effectively a digital paperweight. Signing in to your account is relatively painless, simply asking you to scan a QR code then sign in on your phone, but our Editor in Chief Ron Burke did run into quite a few issues so results may vary. Once you’re in, though, you’ll have instant access to everything you’ve acquired on the PC or Xbox versions. The game fully supports cross-save and crossplay, so going between platforms is totally seamless.

Sea of Thieves has changed a lot since it launched, so let’s go over some of these additions. There are new factions, such as a fishing guild, and their associated quests, more cosmetics coming with each passing season, and more guided quest types called Tall Tales.

Tall Tales include crossovers with Pirates of the Caribbean as well as Monkey Island. Usually your crew will enter an instanced area to solve puzzles, battle enemies, and talk to NPCs. The Monkey Island Tales play like an adventure game just like the series that inspired it, complete with inventory object puzzles, while Pirates of the Caribbean crossovers focus more on Sea of Thieves’ typical puzzle solving and combat with some light platforming. I also tried one of the original Tall Tales solo, which was more of a brain teasing treasure hunt. You can play all of these alone or with a group, but the game is always more fun in multiplayer.

Whatever you decide to do, you’re going to be sailing around quite a bit. You can sail alone or with one friend in a sloop, with two to three players in a brigantine, or with a full crew of four on a galleon. You can join up with people on any platform and it’s easy drop-in, drop-out, though we did not personally test this—we played together on PS5. The game is stable and responsive so long as you have a decent internet connection, but since my internet connection isn’t the best I occasionally experienced rubberbanding. When I moved farther away from my router, the game became almost unplayable, but I doubt most people will experience this extreme situation.

In terms of performance, it’s almost flawless. As previously mentioned, the game runs at a constant 60 fps and looks great doing it. However, we noticed that textures often wouldn’t load in properly. It would take several seconds for distant terrain textures to be replaced by the high quality, close up versions, an issue I don’t recall running into even on PC with the game installed on an HDD. This really only comes up in settlements or when sailing near rocks, but it is a noticeable flaw even if it doesn’t affect gameplay.

Overall, we had a lot of fun playing Sea of Thieves together, especially once our voyage was underway and we had to man the ship. It’s what I would call a “hangout game” as it’s less about what you’re actually doing and more about chatting with your friends. We navigated around rocks, got our boat stuck on a dock, fought fish men, and more, but the game really serves to facilitate conversation rather than steal the show, which is perfect for a chill sailing experience.

David Flynn

Editor | [email protected]

David is the kind of person to wear his heart on his sleeve. He can find positives in anything, like this is a person who loved Star Fox Zero to death. You’ll see him playing all kinds of games: AAAs, Indies, game jam games, games of all genres, and writing about them! Here. On this website. When not writing or playing games, you can find David making music, games, or enjoying a good book.
David’s favorite games include NieR: Automata, Mother 3, and Gravity Rush.

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