Over 5000 players log in every minute to Sea of Thieves and break the beta records of the pirate adventure. This led to a bumpy launch with some problems.
The launch for Sea of Thieves was not easy; one could speak of rough seas into which the launch ship set sail. At the global launch, the servers buckled under the pressure. It even got to the point where the team eventually had to close the doors and let no one in.
However, when you look at the number of players wanting to log in at the same time, it’s no wonder.
Server problems increased as new regions were added
Disconnects, matchmaking problems, and login difficulties were among the initial issues of Sea of Thieves. On Monday, March 19, the rollout of Sea of Thieves began according to German time. The game was gradually released for different regions. Players got creative here and pretended to be Australians to be able to play before the release at midnight in Germany.
After the game was unlocked for North America, the server issues began. The Twitter account of Sea of Thieves quickly announced that the servers were indeed struggling.
It was Tuesday morning when pre-order players from North America stormed the servers simultaneously. Through the preload, they all tried to log in right on time for the launch. When more players came home from school in the afternoon and the first players logged in after work, everything got worse. Even more load for the servers. More problems arose in the game.
The high player numbers are also due to the fact that you can play the game for free through Game Pass or for €10 a month. However, these users did not have a preload and could only download the game after the official release. When the first wave of these players also wanted to access the servers, the developers had to shut the door.
New players now initially had no access to the game so that active pirates in Sea of Thieves could continue playing.
Over 1 Million Unique Users in 48 Hours
In a video about the launch status, the developers explain what a huge influx of players is hitting the servers of Sea of Thieves. “At one point, our server engineer said that 5000 people were coming into the game per minute,” explains studio head Craig Duncan. More than a million unique users logged in during the first 48 hours.
Through the scale tests, they had already been able to recognize when the peak times are, but the developers did not expect such high player numbers.
They explain that between 10:00 AM and 3:00 PM are the peak times for Sea of Thieves. At this time, most players want to log in to the game, and problems occur regularly. The player numbers are up to 4 times higher than the best beta times of the game.
They are now working to keep the servers stable even during these peak times.
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