Steamforged Games has revealed more details about its Sea of Thieves board game, and announced a release window of Summer 2023. In the now-named Sea of Thieves: Voyage of Legends, players will control their own pirate crew and vessel, which they’ll need for sailing around tackling quests, defeating foes, and competing to be crowned ‘Pirate Lord’.
From a SFG press release, it appears the board game adaptation will be open world, as you can “explore wherever the winds take you” and “there’s no set route to victory”. The overall winner is determined through ‘reputation’, but it seems there’ll be plenty of ways to earn this. It also sounds like it’ll feature a dash of co-op and PvP, with some appropriately pirate-y opportunities to double-cross: “you’ll make and break alliances as you compete for the title”.
Other Sea of Thieves things you can do include raiding sea forts, battling skeletons, and contending with a ravenous Kraken or Megalodon. You’ll also be able to hire new crew and upgrade your ship, to increase your pirate powers as the game goes on.
Briefly perusing our best pirate board games list, this sounds a little like an updated, more colourful version of Merchants and Marauders – another title where you win through reputation, garnered through your choice of different boat-based activities.
The Sea of Thieves video game released in 2018. A multiplayer, sandbox, pirate adventure game, it found major success after picking up a significant Twitch following, reaching 30 million players in 2022. In its Sea of Thieves review, our sister site PCGamesN calls it a “superb and silly swashbuckler” – provided you have other people to play with.
Steamforged says with Sea of Thieves: Voyage of Legends it aims to “capture the magic of the much-loved video game”, seemingly in art as well as gameplay. “From a creative perspective, Sea of Thieves’ distinctive art style has been a real pleasure to work with and looks just as evocative on tiles as it does on screen,” says Steamforged co-founder and chief creative officer Mat Hart. He adds that the team has aimed to incorporate the “compelling gameplay loop” of the video game.
From Horizon Zero Dawn to Monster Hunter, Steamforged Games has adapted tons of video games to the tabletop before – that’s kind of its schtick. The publisher tends to like its big minis, and is apparently upping the ante with larger miniatures than ever in the upcoming Elden Ring board game. However, Sea of Thieves: Voyage of Legends looks to be mainly card based – with 162 cards and no minis mentioned in the product description. Your playing pieces seem to be ship cards in plastic standees.
Sea of Thieves: Voyage of Legends is coming Summer 2023, retailing at $59.95 / £59.99.