Community Spotlight - Zyx

By our calculations, and some basic primary school arithmetic, Sea of Thieves has now been available to players for almost nine months. We've seen millions of players explore, make friends, steal and sink ships across the great salty expanse, but none had managed to fully complete the game's Xbox achievement list until now…

With the introduction of Shrouded Spoils, some balancing changes were made to Sea of Thieves' achievements in response to community feedback, making them fairer and more easily attainable. However, before those original achievement conditions were consumed by the fog for all eternity, one player was able to complete them, forever cementing himself as the only pirate to do so!

Enter Davide, otherwise known as Zyx, focus of our Community Spotlight this week as we find out more about his time as both a Sea of Thieves fan and a hardcore hunter of 1000G (and no, we don't mean grogs).

[Q]: Tell us a little about what got you into gaming?

[A]: My first encounter with videogames was as a child during a beach holiday with some arcade machines, it was love at first sight. After thousands of coins spent on Street Fighter, videogames entered my house! My first consoles were the PlayStation (PS1) and Nintendo 64 (N64). Final Fantasy VII, Super Mario 64 and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time are games that I will never forget.

[Q]: Were you a Rare fan before Sea of Thieves and do you have any favourite Rare games?

[A]: As an N64 player, I can't not be a Rare fan! My favorite games are Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie.

[Q]: What games are you playing currently? Any favourites?

[A]: I don't like to mix games, so I usually play only one game at a time. Right now I'm playing Sea of Thieves almost exclusively, and I can say with certainty that it's my favorite multiplayer game of this generation.

[Q]: What made you want to start hunting for achievements?

[A]: I have always loved to complete games and compete with friends. When I realised what achievements were all about, it immediately felt like a challenge from which I could not stay away!

[Q]: How do you decide which games to hunt achievements in?

[A]: I hunt achievements in all the games that I play, but I do not want to put achievements before the games. First of all I play the games that I like, with both easy and difficult achievements (like Sea of Thieves), and in the remaining time I play a mix of nice and easy games.

I think that achievements are a beautiful feature but the game comes first. I read about achievement hunters who have not played Sea of Thieves because of long and difficult achievements. What I want to say to these people is that if you like a game and are afraid of ruining your gamertag, play it on another one, but don't ignore it.

[Q]: What is the most challenging achievement you've earned since you started collecting, Sea of Thieves or otherwise?

[A]: Wow, that's not an easy choice! I have unlocked more than 26k achievements on this gamertag. I think the most challenging is Merchant Forager on Sea of Thieves as it doesn't really require skill so much as dedication and motivation. Playing every day for two months just for an achievement is anything but easy.

Honorable mention for The Shadow Rushed Me (Max Payne 3), Tactical Challenger (Vanquish) and all achievements for LASO and speedruns in Halo: The Master Chief Collection unlocked with my friend superjek.

[Q]: Which game is next on your achievement hunting list?

[A]: I've played Sea of Thieves almost exclusively for eight months, so my backlog now is huge. Far Cry 5, Assassin's Creed Odyssey, Red Dead Redemption 2, lots of indies and many other games that I can't list one by one!

However, I think I will start with Far Cry 5 because I started it a long time ago and I do not like to leave games half-finished.

[Q]: Do you have any standout moments from your time playing Sea of Thieves?

[A]: Anyone who plays Sea of Thieves has standout moments, and it's very difficult to choose just one. But one day me and my crazy PvP friend yesFiLO aboard a Sloop came across an active Fort (Crow's Nest) with two Galleons and a Brig, a frontal attack was suicide so we decided to do it stealthily.

We docked and hid the Sloop behind the rocks to the north side, then shot ourselves in the direction of the Fort. After a couple of attempts in the midst of the chaos of the battle between the ships we were able to kill the captain, take the key and swim back to the ship fighting the sharks. The other pirates did not understand that we were another crew and continued to fight each other without seeing us swim away with the key!

Enthusiastically, we went to the top of Ancient Spire and took a screenshot with key in hand against the Crow's Nest and the enemy ships. We waited for about an hour but the ships were not leaving so we decided to go to the Fort. They were still looking for the key, so we decided to talk and send the screenshot to them.

They were incredulous and we joked about it! That's how we became friends and decided to share the loot. Sea of Thieves has an incredible community, I've never seen anything like this in other multiplayer games.

[Q]: What are you looking forward to most in Sea of Thieves' future?

[A]: I hope the future of Sea of Thieves will also continue to be more focused on co-operation rather than PvP. As for new features, I would like to have the ability to change the type of ship without leaving the game, games where you can only join by invitation and full support keyboard and chatpad support for Xbox One.

[Q]: If you had to choose a pirate name, what would it be?

[A]: Captain Zyx of the Thousand G.

[Q]: What kind of hobbies do you enjoy outside of gaming?

[A]: Videogames and achievements do not leave me much space for other hobbies, but I like watching movies/anime. I also have a great passion for football but over the years it's become more watched than played.

[Q]: Share a fun fact about yourself. Anything is fair game!

[A]: My friends make fun of me because I call myself an achievement hunter and completionist, but I almost always only buy the base game and not the DLC. Come on guys, 1000G is the perfect number!

A great read, if we do say so ourselves. Davide has impressed us with his dedication fitting of a Pirate Legend, and we look forward to seeing which other ways he makes his mark on the Sea of Thieves! And with that, our latest Community Spotlight comes to an end, but you can find previous Spotlights right here.

We'll be back again soon with another, but until then, be sure to head on over to our social channels to stay up to date with the latest from Sea of Thieves and the team here at Rare!