Is Sea of Thieves cross-play?

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By Miles Dompier
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Sea Of Thieves Skullcloud
Sea Of Thieves Skullcloud (Image credit: Miles Dompier/Windows Central)

Is Sea of Thieves cross-play?

Best answer: Sea of Thieves supports cross-play between Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, Steam, and mobile through xCloud Game Streaming. This feature is enabled by default for all platforms, making it easy to play with friends regardless of where they are.

Connecting console and PC pirates

Thanks to its release on Steam in June of last year, Sea of Thieves is bigger than ever. Rare even celebrated its 15-million player milestone and stated that January 2021 saw the highest concurrent player count since the game's launch in 2018. This substantial boost to the total player count makes adventures on the Sea of Thieves feel all the more rewarding and exciting.

Cross-play has been a defining factor in the overall success of Sea of Thieves. As one of the first premiere titles for Xbox Game Pass, it was essential for Rare's social-driven sandbox game to launch with cross-play between Xbox consoles and Windows PC. This flexible release approach opened up avenues for console and PC players to engage with Sea of Thieves without worrying as much about who's playing on what platform.

Can you turn off cross-play in Sea of Thieves?

To ensure fast and convenient matchmaking, cross-play between console and PC players is automatically enabled. For some, there's a legitimate concern about the unfair advantage PC or mouse and keyboard players have due to the game's PVP elements. Thankfully, Rare has introduced an option for players to opt-out of cross-play matchmaking if they're playing on console with a controller.

In a somewhat strange decision, disabling cross-play for Sea of Thieves oddly requires you to change some system settings on your Xbox console as opposed to a toggle within in the game. In the Xbox settings, go to Account and from there select Privacy and Online Safety. Once here, head to the Xbox Live Privacy option and select View Details & Customize. In the Communications and Multiplayer option, you'll then be able to disable the option to play with people outside the Xbox community. Changing this option will turn off cross-play within Sea of Thieves.

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Sea of Thieves

Cross-play lets you play Sea of Thieves with your friends on PC or console.

If you haven't tried Sea of Thieves for yourself, there's never been a better time to jump in. It stands firmly as one of the most unique multiplayer games of the generation.

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Miles Dompier
Miles Dompier

Miles Dompier is a Freelance Video Producer for Windows Central, focusing on video content for Windows Central Gaming. In addition to writing or producing news, reviews, and gaming guides, Miles delivers fun, community-focused videos for the Windows Central Gaming YouTube channel. Miles also hosts Xbox Chaturdays every Saturday, which serves as the Windows Central Gaming weekly podcast.