Every Sea of Thieves game, ranked
All 2 Sea of Thieves games we hold, spanning 2018 to 2020: 2 ranked by the GamingPickz Score and plotted below, the rest listed in release order so nothing in the series is missing. Together they carry 745,123 Steam reviews.
Where to start
- For the best-reviewed: Sea of Thieves: 2026 Edition (GamingPickz Score 8.3), the highest-rated entry we can score.
- For canon order: begin with Sea of Thieves (2018) and follow the release-order timeline below.
The Sea of Thieves games on the grid
Compare the whole catalogueThe same 2 games, plotted rather than listed. The two axes below are the ones the ranking is built from, so a game sitting high and right is a game the formula placed near the top. Change either axis to see the field a different way. Where we hold a publisher wordmark, the game is drawn as its mark rather than a dot.
2 games have both
Axes are fitted to these 2 games rather than the full 0 to 100 scale, because a filtered list shares a narrow band and would otherwise sit in one corner. End values are marked. A point on the left edge is the lowest of thesegames, not a low score.
Players. The share of Steam reviews marked positive, pulled toward the catalogue average in proportion to how few reviews stand behind it. A game with 200 reviews moves a long way toward the average; one with 200,000 barely moves at all. Without this a title sitting at 100 percent on nine reviews outranks Half-Life 2 at 98 percent on 278,000.
Popularity. A blend of two things that are not the same. Audience is how many people wrote a Steam review, which is a floor on how many played it. Reach is how many language editions of Wikipedia document the game, which is cultural footprint rather than sales. A game can score high on one and low on the other: a huge free-to-play title has audience without reach, and a landmark console exclusive has reach without a Steam audience at all. Where both exist they are averaged; where only one does, that one carries it.
- Multi-platform
- PC
Every point links to that game's entry. The value map and the reception map are fixed views of the same data.
How positions are decided
No paid placement, no favouritism, live third-party data
- Placed by the published method, not by us. Every coordinate is computed from the axis definitions and weights printed on this site. Nobody moves a point. See the axes.
- Nothing here is paid for. No sponsored placements, no promoted slots, no arrangement of any kind affects a position. If that ever changes it will be labelled and sit outside the ranking.
- No favouritism, including our own. The 16 games we have written full reviews of are scored by exactly the same formula as the other 1,510, from the same third-party inputs, and they land where it puts them. Our own opinion of a game does not enter its coordinates.
- A position is not an endorsement. It says how a game was received and what it costs, not that we recommend it. Where we do recommend something, it carries a written review with a name on it.
- Fetched from live third-party data. Player sentiment from Steam, critic aggregates as published on store pages, prices checked hourly, attention from Wikipedia. Each figure carries its source and the date it was read, and we do not adjust any of them.
2 best Sea of Thieves games, ranked
Ordered by GamingPickz Score. Every figure links back to the source that produced it.
- 1
Sea of Thieves: 2026 Edition
Best for: The safest bet on this list, by weight of evidence
8.3GamingPickz Scoremedium confidenceSea of Thieves: 2026 Edition at a glance Released 2020 Studio Rare Ltd Player sentiment 89% positive of 372,567 Critics No aggregate Price $39.99 Steam Deck verified Install size 100 GB Accessibility 1 declared feature Raw 89% shrinks to 89.0 on 372,567 reviews, giving 8.3. No critics data, so that weight was redistributed across the rest rather than counted as zero.
What the data supports- 89% positive across 372,567 reviews is a strong signal at that volume, where a few enthusiasts cannot move the number.
- Valve has tested it and rates it Verified on the Steam Deck.
Worth checking first- Carries in-game purchases. Check what they cost before committing.
- Multiplayer only. There is no solo mode to fall back on.
- 2
Sea of Thieves
Best for: The safest bet on this list, by weight of evidence
7.8GamingPickz Scoremedium confidenceSea of Thieves at a glance Released 2018 Studio Rare Ltd. Player sentiment 89% positive of 372,556 Critics No aggregate Price $39.99 Steam Deck verified Install size 100 GB Accessibility 1 declared feature Raw 89% shrinks to 89.0 on 372,556 reviews, giving 7.8. No critics data, so that weight was redistributed across the rest rather than counted as zero.
What the data supports- 89% positive across 372,556 reviews is a strong signal at that volume, where a few enthusiasts cannot move the number.
- Valve has tested it and rates it Verified on the Steam Deck.
Worth checking first- Carries in-game purchases. Check what they cost before committing.
- Multiplayer only. There is no solo mode to fall back on.
Best and worst entry
The best-received Sea of Thieves game we can score is Sea of Thieves: 2026 Edition at 8.3. The lowest is Sea of Thieves at 7.8, a 0.5-point spread across the series. The GamingPickz Score is a composite of player sentiment, critics and popularity, computed the same way for every game.
Cheapest way in, and best value
- Cheapest right now: Sea of Thieves at $39.99. Prices are read live from Steam and move.
- Best value: Sea of Thieves: 2026 Edition, the most GamingPickz Score per dollar in the series at its current price.
On a Steam Deck
Valve's own Deck compatibility rating for the Sea of Thieves entries on Steam:
- Verified: Sea of Thieves, Sea of Thieves: 2026 Edition
Platforms across the series
Where the 2 Sea of Thieves games have landed, counting every entry we hold:
| Platform family | Entries |
|---|---|
| PC | 2 of 2 |
| PlayStation | 1 of 2 |
| Xbox | 1 of 2 |
The Sea of Thieves series, game by game
Every Sea of Thieves game we hold, in release order. Each description is the game's own, from Steam where it has a listing and Wikipedia for the older entries, never ours.
- 2018
Sea of Thieves is a smash-hit pirate adventure game, offering the quintessential pirate experience of plundering lost treasures, intense battles, vanquishing sea monsters and more. Dive in with this revised edition of the game, which includes access to digital bonus media. (Steam)
Reception
Critical reception Reception Sea of Thieves received "mixed or average" reviews from critics according to review aggregator website Metacritic . Most critics agreed that the game had potential to be successful but lamented that the game suffered from a lack of content and questioned Rare's decision to release it as a full-priced product. The game's graphics and the game physics also received praise. (Wikipedia)
- 2020
Sea of Thieves is a smash-hit pirate adventure game, offering the quintessential pirate experience of plundering lost treasures, intense battles, vanquishing sea monsters and more. Dive in with this revised edition of the game, which includes access to digital bonus media. (Steam)
Sea of Thieves, head to head
Two entries side by side on score, price, specs and reception:
Sea of Thieves vs other series
How Sea of Thieves stacks up against other series in the same genre, as a whole:
Also: Sea of Thieves vs Batman, Sea of Thieves vs Just Cause, Sea of Thieves vs Lego Star Wars, Sea of Thieves vs Saints Row, Sea of Thieves vs Serious Sam, Sea of Thieves vs Wolfenstein, Sea of Thieves vs Borderlands, Sea of Thieves vs Crysis, Sea of Thieves vs Dead Island, Sea of Thieves vs Dishonored, Sea of Thieves vs Lego Batman, Sea of Thieves vs Max Payne, Sea of Thieves vs Prince of Persia, Sea of Thieves vs Red Faction, Sea of Thieves vs Sniper Elite, Sea of Thieves vs Sniper Ghost Warrior, Sea of Thieves vs Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon, Sea of Thieves vs Watch, Sea of Thieves vs America's Army, Sea of Thieves vs Bright Memory, Sea of Thieves vs Darksiders, Sea of Thieves vs God of War, Sea of Thieves vs Homefront, Sea of Thieves vs Lego Harry Potter, Sea of Thieves vs Marvel’s Spider-Man, Sea of Thieves vs Metal Gear, Sea of Thieves vs POSTAL, Sea of Thieves vs RAGE, Sea of Thieves vs Red Dead Redemption, Sea of Thieves vs Shadow Warrior, Sea of Thieves vs Slime Rancher, Sea of Thieves vs Sniper, Sea of Thieves vs Squad, Sea of Thieves vs Thief, Sea of Thieves vs Z1 Battle Royale, Sea of Thieves vs Zombie Army
Common questions
How many Sea of Thieves games are there?
We hold 2 Sea of Thieves games in the catalogue, released between 2018 and 2020. 2 of them carry enough Steam data to rank; the rest are listed in release order below, including console-only entries with no Steam listing.
Which Sea of Thieves game is best?
By the GamingPickz Score, Sea of Thieves: 2026 Edition rates highest at 8.3. That is a composite of player sentiment, the critic aggregate and popularity, computed the same way for every game, not our opinion. The full ranking is above.
What order should I play the Sea of Thieves games in?
Release order is listed below, from 2018 to 2020. For most series that is also story order, but we list dates rather than telling you a canon; the timeline is read from Wikidata.
More franchises
Browse every game franchise ranked the same way, or head to the full grid.