What a cool game. I wish it actually worked on PC too.

We have a few PCs on a LAN setup with a couple of friends, and we though we'd give Sea of Thieves a go a while back. Sounds like a cool idea, right? I have to say I have NEVER during my 25 years of PC gaming had more trouble getting a game to work than what we are experiencing with SoT.

We downloaded the game individually for all 4 machines during Easter time, since you can't just simply copy the files from one PC to another like you can with Steam games. This took several days, because the broadband isn't exactly the fastest at the location. Then we found out the game doesn't work. Every time you try to start it, it crashed back to the desktop right after the initial splash screen. I have now spent hours and hours and hours and hours trying to figure out why this happens, and why it doesn't happen on some PCs but it does happen on ALL the PCs that are currently part of that LAN setup.

Yes I know there is a support page for this exact problem, with a collection of seemingly completely random tips ranging from simply updating your Windows to running some mysterious shell scripts in the Powershell. I've tried all those, no result.

Just yesterday I thought I had a breakthrough, I followed some obscure forum tip and created a separate Windows login account that uses the Microsoft Account, instead of being simply a local account like the ones we normally use FOR EVERY SINGLE OTHER GAME AND PURPOSE. This actually solved the problem for 2 out of 3 PCs, (Rare, I strongly suggest you include this in your list of possible cures) but to my surprise not the third. On that third PC it still crashed just like before, despite having the same exact setup with login accounts. Haven't tried it on the fourth one just yet.

What really bugs me is that Rare apparently have no idea where the problem is, and they seem strangely reluctant to get to the bottom of it. I opened a ticket for this problem recently, and sent some diagnostics to the support person, to which he simply replied something like 'thanks for the info, the devs will be in touch if they ever find anything'. Then he marked the ticket as 'solved'. Solved my a***. It's not solved since it still doesn't work. Judging from all the various forum posts there are masses of people with exactly the same problem, but no one knows where the problem is and how to solve it. Plenty of forum posts that begin by saying 'I just bought the game but it doesn't work, plz help!', then describe the same exact issue, while the replies are something like -'Have you tried this solution?' -'Yes I have.' -'oh well, that's too bad, I suppose it just doesn't work for you then'. Oh that's nice to hear. As an IT professional that really gets my goat. How is that even possible? Since it appears to be a problem with the microsoft account / local account credentials or something, how on earth is it not a simple job for the devs to look at the code to see what the first things are that get loaded after the splash screen, and figure out why the Windows account causes the game the crash at that exact moment?

As I'm writing this SoT is again 50% off in the MS Store. Too bad no one's going to buy it since it doesn't bloody work on PC. No one SHOULD by it as long as it doesn't work.