Sea of Thieves launched in 2018 and still owns one of gaming's most immediately recognisable oceans. It did not achieve that longevity through microscopic material detail. Rare chose exaggerated shapes, strong colour separation and water whose movement matters more than photorealistic texture work.

Time has been kind to that decision.

Sixty frames per second suits the design

Rare specifies the PlayStation 5 version at an optimised 4K resolution and 60fps. Push Square highlighted the smooth performance alongside the visual presentation in its review of the port.

The benefit is mechanical as well as cosmetic. Sailing constantly asks players to read motion: waves, deck angle, distant vessels, cannon trajectories and other pirates moving around a ship. Higher fluidity makes those signals cleaner.

Rare describes the standard PS5 setup as equivalent to the Xbox Series X experience.

The 120Hz option makes its trade-off explicit

Compatible displays can enable a 120Hz performance mode. Resolution drops to 1080p.

That can be worthwhile during rapid ship battles and close-range encounters, although the game's long viewing distances also benefit substantially from a sharper image.

There is no complicated promise attached: more temporal resolution, fewer spatial pixels.

DualSense support is functional rather than decorative

Haptic feedback responds to movement and interaction, while adaptive triggers add resistance to firearm use. Rare also supports the controller's built-in microphone for voice chat when no headset is connected.

That last detail is particularly appropriate here. Communication is not merely social decoration in Sea of Thieves; it is often part of operating the ship.

Cross-play connects PS5 users with the established player base, while PlayStation users retain the option to restrict matchmaking to PlayStation Network.

The ocean remains the technical showcase

Both Push Square and GamingBolt single out the water. It is important that the praise is not purely aesthetic. Waves change sight lines, move the firing platform beneath the player and partially obscure distant ships.

Rare's strong silhouettes help preserve readability once several vessels, fires, broken masts and boarding players occupy the same scene.

Eight years of updates inevitably leave seams

Sea of Thieves has a long history of technical bugs. GameSpot's 2020 reassessment documented server, texture and gameplay issues that accompanied the rapid expansion of the game.

That does not establish that every specific 2020 fault remains in the 2026 build. It does show the engineering burden attached to a service game that has accumulated systems for most of a decade.

Ground combat is still less impressive. Guns and swords work, but they lack the precision and systemic character of operating a ship under pressure.

A 4/5 technical verdict fits the current package. Modern hardware exposes the strengths of an art style that aged unusually well, and smoother performance gives Rare's best piece of engineering more room to work. The ocean is not scenery with a wave shader attached. It remains part of the game logic.