Like a weirdly ominous sea shanty that keeps getting louder with each verse, Sea of Thieves has been seeing increasing peak player counts every day since it launched on Steam June 3. To put it another way: every day since launch, Sea of Thieves has seen a new record number of players logged in at once.
This is odd for a couple reasons: first, even for hotly-anticipated titles, the peak concurrent player count is usually within the first 48 hours of launch, with each subsequent day’s peak a bit lower than the last. Sea of Thieves has been doing just the opposite: while it started out with a respectable-enough debut, each day has seen a new record set for the number of players in the game at once.
The second weird thing about this happening with Sea of Thieves is that it’s not a new game: it came out in March 2018, and it was available on Windows right away. Since Xbox Game Pass for PC launched last summer, we’ve been able to play Sea of Thieves for the price of a subscription to that service, which at times has been as low as a dollar for the first month.
As of this writing, the peak player count for Sea of Thieves on Steam is 46,204 – but that number is likely to get topped tomorrow.
This is all good news, no matter where you play – Sea of Thieves supports full cross-play between Xbox One, Windows Store, and Steam editions.
If you’re just getting going with your swashbuckling career, check out our guide to fishing in Sea of Thieves. And if you’ve gotten overly excited, don’t worry: you can now change your piratey underwear right in the game.