How important and how much focus have you guys put on optimization?
We designed our play session lab to sport a different device in each booth, we'd organically perform compatibility testing without realizing it.
We've got great partnerships with AMD, NVIDIA and Intel. Every two weeks we have a call with each of them individually, they get regular builds of the games so they can update their drivers, we've had this partnership for two years.
One of the big things the PC community is going to be saying is, why is this locked to the Windows 10 Microsoft Store?
Why is this not coming to Steam?
What we do get from the Microsoft Store is that we only have to build the game once. We build one game, and it works across the whole Xbox platform, including Windows 10. That allows us to build one set of achievements, one set of multiplayer services, one sec of min specs and everything between there and ultra. Of course, then you've got the cross-play that brings, Xbox Play Anywhere, Xbox Game Pass. It literally ties everything together.
Of course, we could put the game on Steam, but then we'd have to do unique work for those other platforms and their systems. The way the APIs work, the voice chat systems would have to work differently.
We engaged PC gamers very early on.... ....We had 25,000 responses, and we prioritized those features in the order of which was most important to them. We've never built a PC game before, so it was important for us to work that bit harder to really prove that we know what we're doing. If Bethesda make a PC game, everyone's like, "yep, they know how to make a PC game, they've done it for the last 20 years." Whereas Rare, who have made N64 games, who have never made a PC game – and that audience is not going to just give us credibility, we have to earn it.
Having that extra pressure, on us, that we need to prove ourselves, really makes us want to deliver above and beyond expectations.
On the topic of cross-play
What considerations do you have to make building the PC version for people who do have an advantage turning with a mouse, without sacrificing accuracy, for example? How does Sea of Thieves balance that against slower turning console controller players?
We found that PC players did have a 4.5% advantage in skeleton killing. We took that as our initial data set.
We began looking at our shooting mechanics. We decided it was silly that when you fire a bullet, it actually hits immediately. When you fire a bullet, it should arc, it should have a trial and have a particle effect that carries it. These are pirate weapons from hundreds of years ago, they're not AK47s or M16s.
When we started talking about inputs, like you say, the mouse can turn quicker. We figured since we have a mouse sensitivity slider, we need to enable that for controllers as well. Same for the field of view (FoV) slider.
Sea of Thieves system requirements revealed
Sea of Thieves PC design chief talks optimization, Microsoft Store and more
