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Be first to play at pirates via the Sea of Thieves Insider Programme

Sea of Thieves

Microsoft-owned developers Rare have announced a testing programme for their forthcoming multiplayer pirate game, Sea of Thieves. Participants will get access to early testing phases and the opportunity to shape the game my providing feedback.

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“We’re looking to create a pool of players who we can potentially invite into the game to play the game early, and to give us critical feedback to making the game better,” says Bobby Lamirande, Rare’s engagement manager.

Sea of Thieves was unveiled at E3 last year, and we know it’s a shared-world pirate sim, but details beyond this have been thin on the ground for a while. Rare’s dev diarieshave shed a little more light: Rare are trying to deliver the pirate life, with the sailing, fighting, drinking and camaraderie. You’ll explore tropical islands, battle sea creatures, hunt for treasure and duel enemy players in their ships.

If the pirate’s life is for you, you can sign uphereusing your Xbox Live Account. You’ll need to fill in a survey, and then to get lucky when Rare make their picks. Besides limited early access, your rewards will include a unique badge for the official forums, plus exclusive insights on how the game is progressing.

Sea of Thieves is exclusive to Xbox and PC via Microsoft’s Universal Windows Platform. It doesn’t have an official release date more precise than “early next year”, though Xbox’s marketing boss Aaron Greenberg told Kinda Funny that it’s scheduled for the same window as Halo Wars 2, which is due in February.