A collection of thoughts which need working into chapters of yap tbh. (Yapters?)

Poor optimisation for game size (insane amount of polygons on even basic constructs like ropes, adding 2 new textures for a reaper rowboat when we had a perfectly good model already). EDIT: now we have three Reaper-themed rowboats August 2025 (Season 16) because the keg rowie is back (this is cool actually and I have long said that recycling some of the events from the past (a la TF2 Scream Fortress) would improve engagement with (hopefully?) reduced dev / art spend). Misguided (and sometimes unfortunately overruled) creative direction. Money-grabbing instead of earning their keep with meaningful QoL.

Kneecapped by Microsoft and its Azure Playfab server slop they dare to call "infrastructure as a service" with unduly tight budgets per (16?) players meaning event tickrate is constantly in JIT catch-up hell, causing the infamous 'hitreg' that very few other UE4 / UE5 / UE4.X games seem to suffer from to any comparable degree.

Plagued by underage kids (as with all XBOX-adjacent titles) who don't notice / realise the servers are so crap so the majority of userbase can't; doesn't speak up) and offline mode is severely restricted. Personal / community server project might save this game.

Otherwise too many cheaters, EAC is cucked and doesn't work against even basic DMA card shenanigans, even if it has gotten better since inter-island flying keg bombers of Season 8. Microsoft XBOX account-level lowest common denominator enforcement hell, where players regularly making profanity and s**t-talking part of their personal playstyle (scummy teenagers who need to experience the chancla) are tolerated and even encouraged by Microsoft-Rare, but people get banned for joking about how game-destroying the cheater infestation has been.

Rare don't play their own game to a high level in a way in which they are invested, or rather, they don't involve / prioritise *experienced* player feedback in decision-making to a sufficient level to be representative of more than some vocal Redditors and others who lack the requisite critical thinking and self-awareness to not suggest completely unnecessary and, again, game file-inflating so-called 'features'.
Even when increasing the circulation of 'big listen' surveys to everyone with a pulse and an email address, this clearly doesn't prioritise quality over volume. I'm all for inclusion of voices from every corner of the map, but this doesn't ensure that only workable and necessary patches are focused on, and the team is over-stretching itself in so attempting to appeal to the masses who generally have tens of hours rather than hundreds, or even thousands.

Consistent f**king-over of high-hours players with various reworks, from achievement reworks making achievements too easy, but also with event removal causing insane grind for e.g. humble gift commendations (which are not guaranteed drops from forts any more in the same numbers).

They don't listen to feedback from community beta testers (multiple combat-breaking and bugs on game boot (DX12 shader reload, Linux support around new patches) making their way into live even when we were warning of their potential impact weeks in advance, breaking the game on Linux (again warned them weeks in advance). Same with bugs we had around S12 - S14 with fishing line through the ferry to underworld invincibility glitch. Insane stuff that was entirely foreseeable but which just got the 'f**k it; ship it' treatment. This is still an issue with Ghostbeard errors in mid-August '25 with Season 16 because the EAC install script (EOS) is borked and was almost certainly borked (and known borked) in the insider programme, but they don't listen to feedback, they have fake livestreams on Twitch (prerecorded; against ToS) which they use purely as a damage control propaganda platform, so as of mid-2025 I am no longer participating in the Insider programme to any meaningful extent. See above RE: big listen as to why I am still not participating Nov '25.

The absolute works. Good pirate games are hard to come by and are somewhat cursed as a genre but that doesn't explain or excuse wilful mismanagement on what is supposed to be an XBOX / PS5 flagship game for the studio(s). The game is playable in Safer Seas for about 40 hours of Tall Tale content, maybe a little more when replaying with other friend groups, and pursuing full completion of tier 5 achievements. Recent additions to the game have caused deterioration of some puzzles, e.g. where puzzles are facilitated by new weapons whose complexity-reducing impact was not tested at best and tacitly encouraged at worst.

Another thing that must happen (outside of community server infrastructure) for this game to be saved is by Rare growing staff another 300% (or just having better culture, or more competency in key areas, or or or...), Microsoft being cut out completely (yeah lol, not gonna happen), and then pulling back on creative additions (regular season content drops), until the game stops feeling like a stick-on mishmash of dissonant patches, and after some serious self-reflective rework with longevity as a key focus area. This area is critical and the most unlikely seeing as Gregg Mayles (Grog Mayles) is now an (ex-employee)[https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/sources-banjo-kazooie-sea-of-thieves-director-leaves-rare-after-35-years-following-everwild-cancellation/], leaving even fewer pre-Microsoft employees in the fray.

Regular player numbers have been halving nearly every month for the last 9 or 10 months, probably more because I don't keep this review up to date. The graphs are out there and I'm not gonna embed images, but they're out there. It's wild how far we've fallen since 100k-ish average monthly players.

This review may get updated from time to time, I may make this even longer because I have lots of (read: much too much) experience, and talk to quite a few players with, 3,000, 4,000, even 8,000 hours plus in a few cases. Some sentiments here mirrored by members of official community groups like Arrt Club, but not overtly because they value not getting blackballed and/or banned by overzealous moderation.