Sea of Thieves can be breathtaking. Create your pirate and control him in a visually gorgeous game world, sail on your customized ship, explore remote atolls, duel with skeletons, face other crews and sea monsters.
You can play co-op with your friends online: that's a great experience. Maybe during a quiet journey you place yourself at the helm and your pal stands on the mast, watching the horizon with a spyglass; or, during a night expedition on an island, you dig for buried treasures while your companion opens fire on approaching enemies; even better, you struggle to recover a chest from a sinking ship while your pal rescues you from an approaching giant shark (true story!).
All this is supremely fun... although there is no real endgame, you keep repeating variations of the same missions to earn enough money and give your custom pirate nicer-looking items, weapons and ships. This should be just the beginning, the pillar on which to build a game with a story progression that goes beyond "let's get the coolest gear".
A source of irritation is how there are no dedicated servers without PvP (Player versus Player). This means other players will be out to rob and kill you and your team members; although conflict is not mandatory, it is the typical outcome of meeting people who are not part of your crew. Admittedly, this can be fun in itself, but the choice should have been left to the player, including servers where PvP was forbidden. This flaw is mitigated by two factors though. One, long-time players don't have significant advantages over newcomers other than skill and experience, meaning they will not be hideously overpowered since even expensive gear is just cosmetic, leveling the playing field. Two, maps are fairly large and meeting a hostile crew is not uncommon but not constant either.
Overall, sailing around with friends is great, although there is room for further improvement.
8/10
