For a couple years now, the dominant multiplayer pirate game on the market has been Sea of Thieves. It's one of Rare's biggest hits in a while, and it's only doing better by the month. Sea of Thieves keeps getting regular updates and expansions, encouraging the game's oldest fans to keep exploring while giving potential new fans more and more reason to try the game. For a long time, Sea of Thieves has gone largely without competition. That won't last forever, though. Eventually, Ubisoft will be coming forward with Skull and Bones to give Sea of Thieves a run for its money.
It'll be interesting to see to what extent these two AAA pirate games go head to head once Skull and Bones comes out. It seems like it'll offer a lot of the same kinds of adventures that Sea of Thieves does. In Skull and Bones, players customize a pirate captain and roam the seven seas at their liberty. There's one major thing that sets Sea of Thieves and Skull and Bones apart, though. The two games have completely different tones. The more gritty and realistic Skull and Bones stands in stark contrast to the colorful, fantastical, and sometimes goofy world of Sea of Thieves, which ought to draw a clear line between the two games' audiences.
Sea of Levity
Sea of Thieves didn't have a perfect start. When it first became playable, some complained that there wasn't anything to do in the game, leaving many fans disappointed. To the delight of these fans, it's undergone a dramatic transformation since then, with Rare rolling out regular updates and adding all kinds of new objectives to complete and enemies to encounter. However, one thing that Sea of Thieves never changed over the course of its many updates was its upbeat attitude.
Rare's game is strikingly good at having a good sense of humor. It's full of little things that add some levity to anyone's pirate adventure. For instance, every sailor comes equipped with musical instruments that they can play at will. That means that, if a rival group of pirates sinks a crew's ship, they can all sync up their instruments and play a parting song for their loot while going down with the ship, which is a pretty funny way to ease the sting of losing a battle. Sea of Thieves likes a laugh, and that's a nice attitude for a pirate game to have. It helps set Sea of Thieves apart from the rest of the genre.
There's not a lot of pirate games where chomping on a whole banana is a good way to get your health back, but Sea of Thieves allows for that. It never sets out to be a gritty experience or a realistic simulation of pirate life, but it revels in its whimsy. That's something that Skull and Bones seems set to do completely differently. It doesn't seem interested in capturing Sea of Thieves' lightheartedness, which is a big boon for Sea of Thieves in this potential rivalry. No matter what Skull and Bones ends up being like, Sea of Thieves will always have its heart.
Skull and Bones' Attitude
Skull and Bones isn't stylized in any of the same ways that Sea of Thieves is. It seems intended to deliver a highly realistic experience of sailing around the Indian Ocean, and Ubisoft does seem to deserve some props for capturing the region so far. Skull of Bones looks impressive graphically, and sailing around a detailed rendering of the region would really help capture the game's grounded tone. If Skull and Bones really wants to make the player feel like they're in the Golden Age of Piracy, then a serious approach to the setting is a good start.
The game's apparent intention to offer a tough tone is interesting because it's not out of the ordinary for pirate media. Skull and Bones isn't straying from most people's conception of piracy in the way that Sea of Thieves has. That doesn't have to get in Skull and Bones' way, though. It could actually be a good thing if Skull and Bones turns out to be the most successful delivery of the standard depiction of piracy to date. It could reinvigorate the genre by turning the attention of fans and developers alike toward pirates again.
Even now, though, Skull and Bones distinguishes itself greatly from its biggest competitor by being serious. There's plenty of other differences in things like gameplay that set the games apart, but tone alone makes a great difference. Some players might have wished for something a little more gripping and intense than Sea of Thieves, which Skull and Bones might be able to offer them. On the other hand, though, Skull and Bones might have a hard time appealing to Sea of Thieves fans who are used to something a little more cartoony and relaxed.
Expanding the Genre
Neither game is doing anything wrong by working with the particular tone that it's chosen. In fact, it's a good thing that Sea of Thieves and Skull and Bones have such different personalities. It shows that there's room for pirate media to grow and change, even if its depths have been plumbed plenty of times before. Players benefit from having lots of options when choosing a game from a genre they like. Skull and Bones is poised to broaden a market that has been reawakened and brought to life by Sea of Thieves.
The tone of a game has the power to define everything else about it. Developers will sculpt a game's audio, combat, setting, plot, and so much more in such a way that it matches and delivers the tone that they envision. Skull and Bones and Sea of Thieves show the power of tone when put next to each other. On paper, they're pretty similar games, but the different tones that Rare and Ubisoft have gone after have made them very different explorations of the pirate narrative. It'll be interesting to see how Skull and Bones impacts this market once it comes out. The pirate genre has already come a long way, but these two games are determined to see how much farther it can go.
Skull and Bones is in development for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
