After Microsoft acquired the rights to the Gears of War franchise , The Coalition (formerly known as Black Tusk Studios) quickly went to work on a fifth entry in the critically-acclaimed series. E3 2015 saw a stunning gameplay reveal of Gears of War 4 , which is looking to bring back the grimmer horror elements and 2-player co-op that helped make the original such a hit in the first pl

"When we talk about visual effects in games, we normally mean particles. That's what we're using to create all of the cannon effects for example, like the different explosions. You want to give the player strong feelings when they're playing the game... You should just feel like you're really part of this beautiful wor

Rare's Short Haul trailers are just one way the developer is continuing to communicate with its audience, whether they're excited for Sea of Thieves or not. There are several other short video series that are ongoing, like the Inn-side Stories series or one-offs created for special events, like Talk Like a Pirate Day. Perhaps this extensive amount of developer-to-player communication is another strategy to help bring players closer to the experience that Sea of Thieves will provide . Perhaps in knowing Rare, players will better know their ga

Andreas goes on to describe how visual effects are all about bringing the entire experience together, a key facet of what will make Sea of Thieves more than a typical pirate game. As an online multiplayer game with a heavy reliance on character customization and progression, player investment in the character and world is an obvious priori

This isn't the first time that Rare has talked about cross-play for Sea of Thieves , however. Earlier this year, when Rare first activated the closed alpha on PC, the team decided to try out cross-play just to see how it felt. Executive Producer Joe Neate called the experience "magical," explaining that it led him to question why any game would split player bases. But questions about balance and fairness prevented Rare from making it official straight away, however the more the studio considered cross-play, the more it realized there was no good reason not to include

Battlefield 1 delivers exactly what the fans wanted, the familiar multiplayer combat of DICE’s FPS series, but set in World War 1 . From the sights and sounds, to the weapons and vehicles, Battlefield 1 presents the time period as best it can without veering too far away from the franchise’s identity. And with 64-player multiplayer at E3 2016 it was hard not to come away excited to see m

Microsoft has officially announced that Rare's multiplayer pirate action game Sea Of Thieves Online Guide|Https://Seaofthievesfans.Com/ of Thieves will feature cross-play between Xbox One and PC. The announcement came during today's Xbox Gamescom livestream, which included some new trailers, a few announcements, and concluded with the launch of Xbox One X pre-orders. But cross-play for Sea of Thieves could be the biggest surprise, with the game's closed technical alpha implementing the feature, effective immediat

For now, though, Rare will continue with the development of Sea of Thieves in preparation for its forthcoming launch. There's plenty to do, and Rare seems like they're adding new ideas as fast as they can come up with them. The studio just revealed how players can now get sick and vomit into a bucket, then use the bucket as a weapon against friends (or alli

As expected, Sea of Thieves is an online multiplayer game in which players will cooperatively and competitively partake in traditional pirate activities. Those include running a ship by weighing anchor, unfurling sails, and laying down cannon fire on other ships, and island life -- though that was left merely teased. Oh, and don't forget drinking ale. There's plenty of ale to be drunk as well. Mostly though, there was a lot of sea battles with other pirate sh

Previous episodes in Sea of Thieves ' Short Haul trailer series include " Creating Clouds ," " Aboard the Ship ," and " Instruments ." Each explores an example of how Sea of Thieves tries to bring the player closer to the world in which they're playing. Instruments talks about how players can add their own soundtrack within the game through gameplay, but how it's also influenced by social aspects of the game . Creating Clouds shows how Sea of Thieves is using an ever-present object in virtually every game -- clouds -- in a new way to add depth to the experience. It's unexplored territory, which pirates would appreci

Neate is not the first developer to offer this explanation, with former Uncharted developer Amy Hennig also saying that loot boxes and microtransactions are a result of rising game development costs . This means that players can likely expect more microtransactions in games going forward, but many will be hoping that they follow Sea of Thieves ' lead and only offer cosmetic unlo

Specific examples of visual effects cited within Sea of Thieves ' trailer include cannon explosions and how cannon balls crash into ship hulls, as well as the spray of water as a ship parts the sea. Andreas Oberg, the VFX Lead at Rare, describes these effects in detail regarding how they're used to create a more visceral and engaging experience for players. Andreas describes it thusly within the trai