Sea of Thieves' private crew update isn't ship-shape yet
Davey Jones' file-locker
You would think that a game designed explicitly to be played with friends would offer the option to form private parties at launch, but Sea of Thieves dared to be different. Until recently, players were left using a vote system to exile unwanted crew members to the brig, but Patch 1.07 was meant to address that, adding (among other things) an invite-only crew system.
Unfortunately, after deployment of the patch, the game's servers immediately began to take on water, which I'm sure we can all agree is less than ideal. After a little down-time, the patch has been at least partially rolled back, with no estimate given for the return of private crews.
Amusingly, even before the patch went live, Rare found some technical issues stemming from the most minor-seeming of new features: the ability to hand life-giving bananas (as well as other, less edible items) to friends, and removed that from the patch notes until further notice.
Sea of Thieves has been looking a little seasick since launch, including server issues and the developers backing down on planned (yet unpopular) features. When it's working fine and you do manage to assemble a team of your buddies, it's a gem. A more social take on competitive multiplayer, with crews of backstabbing, scurrilous sea-dogs waiting for the perfect opportunity to keelhaul their friends and backstab temporary allies.
While the central loop of treasure-huntage, fightitude and double-crossery is solid enough, players - including our own Sea of Thieves review - complained that there's not quite enough meat on Sea of Thieves' rattling undead bones. Rare are working on some additional stuff to do at sea, but given the recent string of technical issues, I'd be interested in seeing the active player-base figures for the game. Once those numbers drop low enough, it'll take more than shared bananas to keep this ship afloat.