Sea of Thieves Broke Its Player Records in June, 3 Years After Release

Sea of Thieves officially broke its record player count in June, three years after Microsoft Studios published the open-world high seas adventure game.

According to a statement published on the Sea of Thieves website, ships on Sea of Thieves’ waters were at a record-breaking levels in June this year, with over 4.8 million players turning on the game. Executive producer Joe Neate said that the studio had been “bowled over” from the response of the Sea of Thieves community, which had returned en masse for the release of Sea of Thieves: A Pirate’s Life.

“From your reactions on social media to your fan art and stories of exploring the five new Tall Tales, it’s been amazing – and all this excitement resulted in our busiest ever month on the seas, with June seeing 4.8 million active pirates out on the water!” said Neate.

Season 3’s Sea of Thieves: A Pirate’s Life welcomed Disney’s Captain Jack Sparrow to the game in a free expansion to players. As one of many titles available to subscribers of Xbox Game Pass, Sea of Thieves’ popularity likely drafted in buccaneers used to playing a range of different franchises.

In the wake of the game’s success, Creative Director Mike Chapman offered a heartfelt thank you on behalf of the development team.

“I’m so proud of all the work that the team has done and we’ve been so blown away by the player reaction to this,” he said. “We’ve loved watching along and we’ve just loved the speculation and the content being created that we’ve seen. But most of all, hearing your stories and the memories that are created by playing through with your friends or playing with your family, that is absolutely invaluable to us, it means the world to us, it makes all our work completely worthwhile.”

In the wake of record numbers of pirates taking to the seas, Creative Director @ChappersChapman offers a heartfelt thank you on behalf of the team for our community’s response to Sea of Thieves: A Pirate’s Life. Cheers! https://t.co/XKPjJZy7kY pic.twitter.com/NZhtKFC2hf

— Sea of Thieves (@SeaOfThieves) August 17, 2021

Chapman finished his speech by saying that Rare will use the game’s recent momentum to keep building out and enriching the Sea of Thieves experience further. Chapman teased fans by concluding that there were a number of further additional adventures that the team are hoping to bring fans in the future.

If you’re just setting sail in the latest Sea of Thieves expansion, then make sure to check out our top tips for getting started in A Pirate’s Life. Alternatively, if you’d like to sea more from the game, take a look at this piece which explains how you can find a Monkey Island Easter Egg in the game.

Jared Moore is a freelance writer for IGN. He can often be found playing the accordion in his pirate band, The Seven C’s. You can follow him on Twitter.