It’s an accepted practice in video game development to think outside the box to try and get the unique vision you want. Sometimes, you’ll have a great gameplay idea, and then need to think of a theme to tie it all together. For Rare, they’re about to launch their multiplayer pirate adventure game Sea Of Thieves. Looking at it now, you’d be fine with thinking that they were always going to use the theme of pirates, but in fact, they were thinking about other things at first.
Rare studio head Craig Duncan had a chat with IGN about Sea Of Thieves on their podcast, and he revealed that during the process of making the game, they were thinking of very out there themes. Including having vampires or dinosaurs.
“We had all these different themes, vampires, dinosaurs, you name it,” Duncan said. “Just imagine everything, because at this point you’re going broad, you’re brainstorming.”
And that’s fair, after all, brainstorming is just that, thinking of ideas that could work in the broad scope of the game you’re making.
“So you’re going, ‘Here’s our creative vision, which we think this is different to anything else that’s out there—like no one is doing this creative thing—what’s the right theme/wrapper?”
So, how did pirates end up being the final theme? Well apparently, Rare realized that pirates do work together, and that was one of the key gameplay aspects, working with a crew to battle others, go on adventures and more. Once they realized that, they moved forward.
Rare is looking to have a lot of fun with the game, even making fun of other developers with a literal “Day One Patch”…as in an eyepatch with the number “1” on it. The title releases tomorrow on Xbox One and PC, so get your crew and go get the gold!
