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Live the pirate life with 1-3 other scurvy knaves competing to gain the most reputation and become a pirate legend in Sea of Thieves Voyge of Legends! This open world, voyage-based adventure game attempts to emulate the thrill of chasing treasure, destroying enemy skeletons, raiding skeleton forts and avoiding (or fighting!) the fearsome Megaladon and terrifying Kraken. For the most part, this is exactly what it achieves, with a typical game lasting around 2-3 hours depending on the number of players and enemies that are spawned.
How Does It Play?
The map itself is hex-based, with islands, dangerous waters and spawn points dotted about. Each of the six sea tiles has two islands each, with the central outpost tile having four. The islands are all named after and look like their video game counter parts, which is a nice touch.
A typical turn structure sees you respawning ships, reviving crew, repairing damage, bailing water or sailing around the board moving from island to island. Then you’ll plunder islands, collect cargo, kill skeletons or shoot cannons at other enemies (or player ships).
Once you’ve accumulated some treasure, you’ll sail to the outpost in the centre of the board where you can sell your loot, repair and upgrade your ship, hire special crew and replenish your voyages.
Once all the players have taken their turns it’s time for the ocean hazards to have a go. Skeletons will spawn, enemies will attack players, treasure will appear across the board and keep things interesting.
Finally players will draw their “fortune” cards, which provide a variety of buffs and abilities such as being able to attack with gunpowder barrels, return fire, gain extra movement when sailing, as well as lots of other sneaky tactics like boarding player ships, finding messages in bottles, even calling “Parley!” if you really don’t want to get shot with cannons!
How Do You Get Set Up?
Setting up the game does take a little while as there are a whole host of tokens, cards and standees to put together and distribute amongst the players. A decent amount of space is required; the board is quite big once it’s all together, and you do need a separate space for the outpost board, used to track reputation, with all of the games card decks (Fortune, Event, Special Crew, Voyages) placed around it in their designated spots.
There is a smaller set up for two players, which is good to see, as playing with two on the full board would definitely make for less player interaction which is a huge part of the game.
Packing away is equally quite time-consuming, although it does all fit neatly into the box with the integral packaging having lots of compartments for you to keep the various tokens and pieces separate.
What’s The Quality Like?
Overall, Sea of Thieves Voygeof Legends has really good quality. The standees all look great and represent the 3 ships found in the video game (Sloop, Brigantine, Galleon), the Megaladon, Kraken, Skeleton Ships (Sloop and Galleon) and Skeleton Fort. The tokens are card based but quite thick and well printed, the cards are of good quality and there are some nice touches like a quick reference guide for each player.
The boards themselves are printed well on firm, thick card, but they don’t have any method of clipping them together which is a shame. The board has a tendency to slide around on the table and can come apart. I’d have liked to have seen some method of attaching them together.
I find myself wondering if I’d have preferred miniatures instead of standees but in terms of box space it would require a larger box and therefore storage space, the standees are big enough that they show the ships they represent really well, but small enough that they fit in the box. There is the potential that over time, with constant pushing in and out of the standee, they could wear, but this is a minor gripe.
What Are The Rules Like?
The rulebook does a pretty good job of explaining how the main game mechanics work, taking you through the basics before explaining the turn structure in full detail. There are some subtle details missing (it still isn’t entirely clear to me whether skeletons are supposed to spawn in the water or on the islands – it makes no sense that they’re in the water!), but overall it’s legible, laid out well, and easy to reference when you need it.
As I said before the player quick reference cards are a huge bonus and a really good idea. Each player knows what they can do with their ships each turn and it makes the game flow pretty nicely once you get into the swing of the turns.
How Much Player Interaction Is There?
As little or as much as you want! It’s entirely possible to sail around, collect loot, sell, gain rep and win the game, without ever coming into contact with another player but this is highly unlikely. Having loot on your ship means that you’re a target, while sinking means you drop the treasure, lose rep for failed voyages and lose any special crew you may have had so planning ahead is key although you never quite know when the Megaladon or Skeleton Ships are going to appear.
The game uses a function called “The Scurvy Knave”, which is the player with the least gold in their hand, and this player is the one called upon to read the event cards and they get to do specific actions during the event phase as well as decide where skeleton ships go so even if you’re down on gold you could find yourself in the position to make a nuisance of yourself and cause other players to lose rep or spend resources they otherwise wouldn’t have had to!
Will I Play It Again?
Absolutely! The sea tiles in Sea of Thieves Voyge of Legends are double-sided, as is the outpost board, so there are numerous different sea layouts you can use. Each adventure is going to be completely different as the events, fortune cards and voyages are all shuffled and randomised before each game.
I’ve had games with no sea monsters and ones with all of them at once. I’ve had four player games take an hour and a half and two player games take three hours because of all the different interactions we have had. It’s definitely a game which keeps you coming back for more.
