Review by C.J. Bunce
Pirates of the Caribbean isn’t the only modern outlet for fans of Pirate Culture. For the past seven years Sea of Thieves has been celebrated as a first-person shared world action-adventure game allowing players to sail a legendary world alone or with a crew of up to four players, rooted in the early roleplaying game Oregon Trail. The out-of-print 2018 book The Art of Sea of Thieves looked ahead to building the franchise, but this month Titan Books is releasing an extensive update and follow-up, filled with hundreds of new images and expanded content exploring the best characters, pets, ships, weapons, costumes, equipment, and locations from the game. Sea of Thieves: The Art of Piracy is a showcase of pirate imagery and lore, available now here at Amazon. The latest tie-in from the game (check out my reviews of Sea of Thieves: Heart of Fire here, Tales from the Sea of Thieves here, and Sea of Thieves: The Cookbook here), it’s for the fan who loves the fantasy world’s Don Bluth-inspired artistry.
New to Sea of Thieves? Inspired by a world fleshed out in popular fiction by Robert Louis Stevenson and popularized most recently in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, anyone young and old will love this world full of all the tropes of pirate lore. Released in March 2018, the game’s greatest appeal is its visuals, opting for a cartoon-like palette versus a photo-real world, and its cooperative gameplay. The story plays into that, as it leans away from serious seafaring storytelling, such as found in the detailed ship descriptions of Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin novels, or the serious drama and romance of C.S. Forester’s Horatio Hornblower books. This is much closer in tone and lighthearted nature to Stevenson’s Treasure Island, the kid adventures The Goonies and Finding ‘Ohana, and Ray Harryhausen’s mythology fantasies.
Commentary from the game’s creators discusses the evolution and development of the game, created by Rare and distributor Microsoft for Xbox One and Windows PC. The adventures are light fare, suitable for any age–they don’t go so far as the darker side of the high seas as you would find in Lovecraft, but the voices are similarly evocative of his style. The artwork is stylized from the game with the icons, legends, and emblems you’d expect from pirate lore.
The book is presented chronologically as the game developed and was expanded. It pulls in artwork from Paul Davies’ Tales from the Sea of Thieves, a fictional journal written loosely in the style of seafaring lore like you’d find in A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates, Sir Walter Scott’s Waverley novels, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, more recently William Goldings’ To the Ends of the Earth, and countless other historical accounts. Eleven monthly adventures and 14 seasons are filled in with materials like you’d find in any roleplaying game like Dungeons & Dragons.
As with the past books in the franchise, the audience for this book is anyone excited about the game and interested in more related content, and as a springboard for those who have yet to step into the world of Pirates of the Caribbean, Horatio Hornblower, Jack Aubrey, Long John Silver, and the legion of nonfiction and fiction books on the subject, but could use a push to get excited about this interesting genre.
Revisit the game or see what you’ve been missing in Sea of Thieves: The Art of Piracy available now from Titan Books, written by Chris Allcock, at all bookstores and here at Amazon.
