Microsoft and Rare have been working around the clock to get Sea of Thieves out to the general gaming public on Xbox One and Windows 10. The open-sea, multiplayer adventure game garnered quite the attention when the beta finally opened up to more players, despite having some initial problems in the early goings.
Gamespot is reporting that the closed beta test for Sea of Thieves is currently underway for those who pre-ordered the game. However, not all has gone according to plan. While the closed beta test for pre-order consumers gained a lot of traction and support across social media, there was the rather unfortunate side effect of some gamers not being able to get in due to an error message popping up saying "too early."
The closed beta is available for anyone who pre-ordered the game prior to December 1st, 2017. It does apply to those who pre-ordered the game for either the Xbox One or Windows 10. Anyone who pre-ordered the game digitally automatically received their code to access the most recent closed beta, while those who pre-ordered through retail had to go through the extra step of retrieving a code to participate in the beta.
Nevertheless, some gamers attempting to get in who are being met with the "too early" error message have reported the issue to Rare, and the developers are currently going through ways to fix the issue. The developer did issue some sort of a solution, mostly in the form of suggesting on Twitter that gamers pre-order within the next 24 hours and retrieve the closed beta key through the Xbox Insider Hub either on Xbox One or through the Windows 10 store. This will supposedly fix the "too early" issue that gamers are encountering.
Some people managed to fix the issue this way, but others still had problems with the game not loading while still receiving the error.
The thread offers some solace in the form of Rare saying that it's looking into the issue and will continue to troubleshoot the problem.
There are also some patches being rolled out to address some of the access issues that some closed beta users have run into with Sea of Thieves. The latest updates indicate that access should be open to all.
The game itself is a party-based adventure title. It's not often that we have games themed around cooperative adventures. Most of those are relegated to persistent, MMO, theme-park style designs where players progress through the game in a very linear fashion. Sea of Thieves offers the opposite, giving gamers a completely open world to explore, lots of treasure to steal, and some non-committal PvP elements, where players can dive into or get out of encounters with other players without having to actually finish the battle.
The ship boarding is similar to games like Allods Online or Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, but with a more casual and cartoony theme surrounding the gameplay. The closed beta is currently going on right now and will end on January 29th.
