To sail the seven seas, embracing the life of a pirate is a dream that E3 is keen to deliver with Rare's Xbox and Windows 10 exclusive Sea of Thieves . After debuting at Microsoft's press conference during E3 2015 , everyone expected more of the first-person pirate adventure game to be shown this year as well. Rare did not disappoint on expectation, delivering the first gameplay as well as a new cinematic trailer. Rare even went beyond expectations, going onto the Youtube Live E3 stream and showing off another block of gamep

Neate is not the first developer to offer this explanation, with former Uncharted developer Amy Hennig also saying that loot boxes and microtransactions are a result of rising game development costs . This means that players can likely expect more microtransactions in games going forward, but many will be hoping that they follow Sea of Thieves ' lead and only offer cosmetic unlo

As expected, Sea of Thieves is an online multiplayer game in which players will cooperatively and competitively partake in traditional pirate activities. Those include running a ship by weighing anchor, unfurling sails, and laying down cannon fire on other ships, and island life -- though that was left merely teased. Oh, and don't forget drinking ale. There's plenty of ale to be drunk as well. Mostly though, there was a lot of sea battles with other pirate sh

Although it could have easily closed the show and generated the same amount of response, God of War kicked off Sony’s E3 Press Conference and set a specific tone. Seeing Kratos bearded and with a son helped draw players in, and the direction and gameplay reinforced that this wasn’t going to be the same God of War that fans know and love. But more than anything, the demo was compelling in all the right ways. It looked great, had interesting gameplay, and teased just enough of the story to leave fans wanting m

Sea of Thieves is an Xbox One and Windows 10 exclusive with no currently announced release window, though it is part of Microsoft's Play Anywhere program . Expect more information on Sea of Thieves Walkthrough|https://seaofthievesfans.com/ of Thieves in the months to c

Andreas goes on to describe how visual effects are all about bringing the entire experience together, a key facet of what will make Sea of Thieves more than a typical pirate game. As an online multiplayer game with a heavy reliance on character customization and progression, player investment in the character and world is an obvious priori

At one point the open world crime genre was packed with titles, but since then most have cleared the way for Grand Theft Auto . Mafia 3 , however, is trying to stake its claim on the genre with a unique setting, a unique main character, and some clever mob mechanics. Set in a city not unlike New Orleans, Mafia 3 has players taking control of Lincoln Clay , an African American vet who is trying to build up his own mafia in order to take down a rival mob. While the Mafia games have always explored the management aspect to building up a squad of loyal enforcers, Mafia 3 makes it feel like you are really developing your own ma

Unlike past year's E3 events, this year's had a particular air of familiarity. Going into the even most gamers had a pretty good handle on what should be announced, and by and large the major publishers stuck to their scripts. There were some surprises, like the official reveal of the Xbox One Scorpio , but mostly it was the known quantities that impres

Sea of Thieves , the forthcoming Microsoft exclusive , is being pitched as a games as a service-style game. Publisher Microsoft sees it as the sort of game that players will want to keep coming back to month after month. It comes as little surprise then, that like so many other games as a service, Sea of Thieves will also include microtransacti

Even though Rare Replay was one of the most pleasant surprises of 2015, it's been far too long since Rare has made a game that feels truly aligned with its original development vision. Yes, the masterminds of yesteryear have moved on from the heralded development studio, but when we got a glimpse of Rare's next project, it's hard not to feel that awesome blend of nostalgia and novelty that this UK-based developer seemed to capture so well.

The relative lack of gameplay shown compared to ways players can interact in basic ways was intentional, however. Rare would later state that the game is still mid-development on many gameplay systems, but that the team is so excited to show the game that everyone wants to show what's reasonable. For example the island adventuring, the customization features, and most important perhaps -- the loot, are still in-development systems. Those features will be shown as soon as they're ready, as Rare intends to be as transparent as can be going forw

However, with so many games on-hand it might have been hard to pick a favorite, or even 10 favorites. But Game Rant did just that, and so without further ado here are the the winners of Game Rant's Best of E3 2016 Awa