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Watch 15 minutes of gameplay from Sea of Thieves

Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me.

Our Tom Phillips managed to get a quarter hour hands-on with Rare's upcoming title Sea of Thieves, an open-world multiplayer game about pirates.

Watch on YouTube

It starts off a bit like Monster Hunter wherein you can meet up with fellow players and grab some grub before setting off for adventure. Only instead of ingesting some fine cuisine, you guzzle grog which makes everything a wee bit wobbly.

There's a bit of faffing about in the beginning as Tom and his merry crew find their sea legs, but things eventually pick up with a couple of rousing naval battles set against a shimmering sunset and an enchanting moonlit sky.

It looks like quite a bit of teamwork is involved in steering the ship, manning the cannons, and patching up damage to the vessel's hull after taking a beating from fellow pirates.

Now let's hope the final game has more sea shanties available besides an accordion rendition of Ride of the Valkyries, which, while lovely, wears on quite quickly when it's the only song the crew knows how to play.

Sea of Thieves is due around February of next year on Xbox One and Windows 10.