Is Sea of Thieves Cross Platform?

Introduction 

    Sea of thieves is an action adventure game developed by publisher Rare. It is a pirate themed game that is open world and multiplayer. Meaning everyone you come across in the game excluding the obvious npc characters at the game's outposts, are real players that you can talk to, fight, and or steal their treasure, whatever pleases your pirate needs. however many players may want to play with their friends. However one of the largest problems with the gaming industry is the ever increasing number of platforms that people play games. So this raises the question, is Sea of Thieves cross platform? 

Answer 

    Yes! Sea of Thieves is crossplay. However it comes with its limitations. Because Sea of Thieves is an xbox exclusive it can only have crossplay on the platforms it is available for purchase on. This means that Sea of Thieves is crossplay but only between xbox and windows PC as well as steam. 

    Sea of Thieves is currently not available for purchase on playstation due to the game being an xbox exclusive. Because of this, the cross play is limited to only Xbox and Pc, with users on windows as well as Steam 

How Does Crossplay Work and Can I Turn it Off?  

    Crossplay works in Sea of Thieves as a matchmaking preference. When you first load into the game at the beginning of your session you are able to go into the settings of your game. In the settings you will find an option that reads "Matchmaking Preferences". When you have this button selected you will be brought to a screen that has two options. One option is for Arena mode in Sea of Thieves and the other option is for adventure mode. It will read "prefer players with controllers" and then there will be two options, yes and no. If you select yes, than all the players that you encounter on the Sea of Thieves will strictly be using a controller and will posses no competitive advantage. However this also limits crossplay as your friends who may be on pc will not be able to join your session. If you select no, this means that you will be sailing the seas with all players. This includes players using controller who do not exclude pc in their settings as well as all pc players. 

What is the difference is there any advantage?

    Yes, there is a very large advantage. In video games it is known that there is a very large advantage to using a mouse and keyboard over a controller. This is because they have such precise aiming capabilities as a mouse's movements are exact, meanwhile using a joystick makes it much more difficult as there is no curser you are able to physically move to a pinpoint spot. So because of this there is a natural advantage to using a keyboard and mouse. This is why it has become a very large problem in the gaming community as many people are using keyboard and mouse on games designed and played on console. And these players have an unfair advantage over everyone else and it decreases the competitive nature of the games.  

How to know If You Are Playing In A Crossplatform Lobby!

    If you are concerned that you are playing in a PC lobby there is an easy way to check but it only works when you first load into the world. Right when you load in if you look on the top left of the screen there will most likely be a pop up that will be on display. It will either read: "Sailing the Seas with all players" or it will say " sailing the seas with controller players only". This popup will tell you who you are playing with. If it says all players than you are playing with PC and controller. If it says controller only, well that is self explanatory, you are playing with players only using a controller. 

Conclusion 

    Sea of Thieves is a game that is truly best played when you are with your friends. There is no other experience quite like it. I highly recommend going to any lengths neccessary to play with a group. If this means enabling crossplay in order to play with your friends, so be it. However if you are playing by yourself it is probably a good idea to turn off crossplay. Because if you are a controller user than you automatically have a very large disadvantage. However if you are on PC feel free to keep it on because there might be a poor soul who forgot to turn it off.