Sea of Thieves Considered Igniting Cross-play Rivalries Between PC, Console Players

The upcoming pirate-themed Sea of Thieves game has boasted its cross-play potential since its reveal, but the developers apparently considered taking the shared gameplay a bit further with platform-specific sails for players to represent their console or PC.

Developed by Rare, the team confirmed during Gamescom that the game would feature cross-play between the Xbox One and the PC versions, a multiplayer theme that’s become a pretty popular topic in recent months. Players and developers seem to be pushing for cross-play more often in their games, but Sea of Thieves would’ve taken a slightly different twist on the feature by allowing players to play with each other while reminding them that they’re definitely on different platforms.

“We’ve had these conversations internally,” said Sea of Thieves’ PC design lead Ted Timmons. “What we do have done if there was a massive imbalance [in cross-play]? I thought: Maybe we should just embrace it, and try to settle some 30-year old disputes. We thought about PC players having their own sails and Xbox players having their own sails.”

While Rare ultimately moved away from the idea to give special sails depending on what platform players were on, it makes sense that they’d go with that option as an easy indicator of how players are participating in Sea of Thieves. Much like a sail that includes a country’s flag or a black skull-and-bones flag indicative of a pirate fleet, seeing a massive Xbox logo or a warning of the incoming PC master race would be a fitting way to represent your preferred platform. The idea could be pretty divisive though, so the team decided to table the addition.

“But we decided to shy away from that, for now at least, because we spent a lot of time on the balancing side and are keen to assimilate players as seamlessly as possible,” Timmons continued.

With Sea of Thieves adding cross-play and other games like Minecraft, Rocket League, and more recently Fortnite pushing for the feature and putting pressure on PlayStation, more games will likely follow suit in the future. Sea of Thieves is scheduled for a 2018 release.

[via PC Gamer]