Sea of Thieves is a game about taking on the high seas, and a team of friends or strangers to help you use a ship to navigate the game. There are three different ships in the game, and to manage them, you have to manage a station where you raise the sails, adjust their direction, have someone watch the map and someone steers the ship towards the crew goal. All of these minor parts need to be working at the same time to work properly. But there is a smaller ship, a sloop, which some players can reliably handle on their own. With Sea of Thieves entering Steam, it has a tag for a single player attached. Can you play the game by yourself?
You can certainly do it, but there is a significant cost to going this route. The main intention is for four players to work together to complete various Sea of Thieves tasks. These tasks vary from looting other players' pirate ships, exploring the region through Tall Tales, battling Skeleton forts, battling giant sea creatures, and handing over the loot to various NPC factions. You can do this with a crew of four, three, two, or just one person who can do a part of that. However, it is difficult for a single player to do much of the game.
A good majority of the strong skeletons and giant sea creatures require a full crew to face them. You certainly don't want to find yourself in a sloop, surrounded by a Kraken, or hearing the overwhelming sound effects of an angry Megalodon. These creatures won't disappear without a tough fight, and sometimes a full crew of four unprepared players can't do much to fight them.
Only one person can jump in their sloop, explore the game, take part in smaller quests for NPC factions, and climb the reputation ranks and earn a fair amount of gold. You wouldn't be able to do it quickly on your own, but you could. You should be patient because when you die, no one will be able to resuscitate you and enemy players could easily take your ship.
Regardless, Sea of Thieves is not a single player game. It's hard to play on your own, but there are no rules or forced requirements for you to form a crew. For those who don't have friends who are actively playing the game, random players can still join your team and you work with them to achieve pirate goals. You could make friends along the way, Sea of Thieves adventure in a weekly reunion.
