Sea of Thieves sails onto Steam on June 3

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More than two years after its debut on the Microsoft Store, the multiplayer high-seas hijinks game Sea of Thieves will arrive on Steam on June 3. Developer Rare said it's looking forward to opening the game to "a whole new community of PC players," and also confirmed that the Steam release will have full cross-play compatibility with the Windows Store and Xbox One versions.

New Sea of Thieves players on Steam will still need to create a free Xbox Live account, and unfortunately current players who want to make the new to the new storefront will have to spring for the game again. The good news is that if you do, all your progress will go with you—all ranks, cosmetics, and currency will be available after you log into your account, and any Steam achievements you've already earned will unlock automatically too.

Sea of Thieves is a lot of fun as a big, silly, high-seas piracy sandbox, especially when you're teamed up with a good crew. (Although "good" in this context can be very subjective.) You can also pull off seriously greasy stunts like this, if that's how you like to roll. In April we ranked it among the most improved ongoing games currently available, and it recently got even better with the addition of cats—in hats.

For the moment, the Sea of Thieves Steam page still lists it as "coming soon," but it will go for $40/£35/€40 when it's live.

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.