Highlights

  • Sea of Thieves has exceeded 40 million lifetime players.
  • Its newest user milestone was announced just as the game concluded its highly successful PS5 beta.
  • Even so, the 40-million figure does not include PlayStation users.

Sea of Thieves has surpassed 40 million lifetime players, Rare has revealed. This remarkable user milestone was achieved around the time Sea of Thieves concluded its immensely popular PlayStation 5 beta.

March 18 marked the sixth anniversary of Sea of Thieves' PC and Xbox debut. The live-service pirate game was met with decent reviews, eventually developing a healthy player community, not least because of its consistent influx of new content. A PS5 port of Sea of Thieves was announced in February 2024 as part of Microsoft's pivot to multi-platform publishing.

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Sea of Thieves Hits 40 Million PC and Xbox Players

Following the conclusion of the game's PlayStation beta, Rare Executive Producer Joe Neate revealed that the co-op action adventure has exceeded 40 million lifetime players. The studio official clarified that the cited figure only includes Xbox, Microsoft Store, and Steam versions of the game, without offering a player count breakdown by platform.

That number could ostensibly grow notably higher in the near future, primarily driven by PlayStation users. The game's recently concluded PS5 beta was so popular that Sea of Thieves servers struggled to keep up, with Rare even apologizing for the longer matchmaking times that ensued. The test was only available to PS5 owners who pre-ordered the game, making its beta momentum even more impressive.

Sea of Thieves Lifetime Player Count History

Period

Player Count

January 2020

10 million

July 2020

15 million

March 2021

20 million

October 2021

25 million

June 2022

30 million

February 2024

35 million

April 2024

40 million

Given how well Sea of Thieves PlayStation pre-orders have been doing even before its closed beta test kicked off on April 12, the game appears likely to improve on its already remarkable lifetime player count in the foreseeable future. While six years is a long time to stay relevant, Rare's co-op title has been pretty consistent at finding new audiences, having averaged 7.5 million new players per annum since its second anniversary. Even so, adding 5 million new users in just a couple of months is the fastest that Sea of Thieves has grown since its 2018 debut.

Between Season 12 that's expected to drop in summer 2024 and the April 30 release of the game's PS5 version, Sea of Thieves appears to be well-positioned to maintain its momentum for the foreseeable future. Its PlayStation port may be the driving force behind its near-term prospects, at least as far as Microsoft's expectations are concerned. That was recently suggested by Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer, who said that all of the Xbox games going multi-platform in 2024 will be titles that the company decided have already maximized their audience within its own ecosystem.