The Xbox and Microsoft rumours are flooding the news at the moment, aren’t they? And there’s another one sailing into view — Microsoft exclusive Sea of Thieves, developed by Rare, is reportedly being considered for Switch and PlayStation.
Giant Bomb and Game Mess Mornings host Jeff Grubb claims that he’s heard that “that was the one that might be coming to other platforms,” (via VGC). Speaking on Game Mess Mornings earlier today (above), 8th January, the host states that this, alongside rumours of an Xbox “critically-acclaimed” title also making the jump, shows that Microsoft “is kind of trying to rejigger its strategy”.
Now, given the huge scope of Sea of Theives’ world, and the online multiplayer aspect, we’re finding this one a little bit hard to believe, particularly on Switch. But perhaps “Switch” in this case is a stand-in for whatever Nintendo’s next console will be — now that could work. And look, we’re always excited to see more Rare games on Nintendo platforms. For now, have a healthy sprinkling of sea salt handy.
But former Kotaku editor and Axios reporter Stephen Totilo has also heard similar rumblings — albeit, specifically for PlayStation and not for Switch. Over on his Game File newsletter, Totilo states that sources familiar with port plans have claimed that Microsoft is looking “into launching its hit Xbox and PC multiplayer pirate game” on Playstation.
Totilo reached out to an Xbox rep regarding this comment, but they declined to comment. However, he states — in response to Grubb’s comments this morning — that he has “only heard about PlayStation” but that he is “unable to verify if Sea of Thieves to PlayStation is still an active plan for Microsoft”.
Sea of Thieves is an online multiplayer adventure game where you play as a pirate. The game launched on Xbox One and Windows back in 2018 and initially, critics were a bit lukewarm on the game, but Rare — known in these waters for developing tons of brilliant platformers for NES, SNES, and N64 — has continually updated the game, and is now considered one of the most-successful modern Xbox games. An enhanced version was released on Xbox Series X|S in 2020, and it’s also available on Xbox Game Pass.
The prevailing rumour going around at the moment really points toward that “critically acclaimed” title we mentioned earlier. Popular theories point to either Hi-Fi Rush, a 2023 GOTY contender, or Obsidian’s Pentiment.