Once in a while, you’ll spot a sail on the horizon and know that a battle with a group of strangers is likely. One person steers, one navigates, someone mans the sails or loads the cannons. The first challenge is mastering the ship. The jobs are always the same: accept the mission, find the island, do the task, return to an outpost, collect payment. For the Gold Hoarders, you’re looking for buried treasure for the Order of Souls, it’s the skulls of defeated foes for the Merchant Alliance, it’s ferrying goods – mostly animals – from one place to another. You begin alone, with a single crew member or as a squad of four, and then you’re out into the world, taking on jobs for the seafaring organisations that set up tents at every outpost. It’s currently a game about fetching stuff. In Sea of Thieves, you spend much of your time on the ocean, sailing between the desert islands. There are plenty of moments like this if you play for a while. You may not feel as if you’re really out on the open waves, but you wish you were. Although the visual style is painterly rather than naturalistic, it gives each moment warmth. As the sun falls, it becomes a giant fireball on the horizon, silhouetting the craggy cliffs of some distant island. T here are moments of astonishing beauty in pirate adventure Sea of Thieves.