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Stranger things happen at sea. Sometimes, they’re my fault.
Great moments in PC gaming are bite-sized celebrations of some of our favorite gaming memories.
Developer: Rare
I’ve done things I’m not proud of out on the high seas. I’ve stood at the bow of the ship fishing for a rare catch while my crew worked to pilot us through a raging storm without me. I’ve barfed in someone’s face after too much grog. I’ve impatiently looked at my own map instead of politely holding it up for a fellow pirate to study. But I am definitely proud of suddenly and dramatically murdering my entire crew with a single sword swing.
It takes real skill to pull off the kind of catastrophe that leaves three people stunned and sends a galleon and an entire night’s haul of treasure to the bottom of the sea, but you too can be this kind of elite pirate with practice. Here’s what you do: every so often when you feel that restless sitting-still-too-long energy traveling down your leg and setting your foot to tapping, let your mouse hand in on the action too. Pull out your sword and do a few playful swipes towards your fellow pirates. You’re not gonna hurt ‘em! It’s just a little dance.
But here’s the tricky part: don’t swing your sword at them so often that they expect you to do it all the time. You don’t want a reputation as that pirate who’s too antagonistic. You might be a nervous trickster, but you’re not an outright wild card. Lull them into thinking that and your moment will come.
Finish a mission, get together on the deck to celebrate, and coax one of your crewmates into picking up a gunpowder barrel while everyone else dances around playing their instruments. Nothing dangerous about holding a gunpowder barrel on your own ship! Perfectly safe. What’s somebody gonna do—swing their sword around for absolutely no reason?
You can only be the pure agent of chaos once, for one unforgettable moment. After that, it’s back to the normal pirating life. But it’ll be worth it.
The beauty of Sea of Thieves is that it’s such a pleasant world to hang out in, and so well-built for slapstick mischief, sinking your ship isn’t a night-ruining disaster. It’s actually just a springboard for more excitement: three of us respawned floating in the water and desperately tried to corral the valuables still floating on the surface, while one spawned on an island and had to haul ass across the map with a new ship to pick us up.
Even if you decide the extreme life of a crew-killing pirate isn’t for you, give Sea of Thieves shenanigans a shot. If you want to start with something a little subtler, I can recommend another move: leave a fish frying on the galley stove for so long it catches your whole ship on fire. Your crew’s gonna love figuring that one out.
Wes has been covering games and hardware for more than 10 years, first at tech sites like The Wirecutter and Tested before joining the PC Gamer team in 2014. Wes plays a little bit of everything, but he’ll always jump at the chance to cover emulation and Japanese games. When he’s not obsessively optimizing and re-optimizing a tangle of conveyor belts in Satisfactory (it’s really becoming a problem), he’s probably playing a 20-year-old RPG or some opaque ASCII roguelike. With a focus on writing and editing features, he seeks out personal stories and in-depth histories from the corners of PC gaming and its niche communities. 50% pizza by volume (deep dish, to be specific).
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