Forget Skull and Bones - the upcoming Sea of Rifts offers real sailing

If you want to experience life at sea without nausea or the risk of getting wet, fortunately there are many games in the gaming world where you are the captain of your own ship. However, there is a small catch, because in most cases even sailing ships in the gaming world seem more like finely tuned motorboats that happily ignore both wind and current conditions.

This is not the case in the upcoming role-playing game Sea of Rifts. Here, you actually have to sail, which means you have to make sure you have wind in your sails. And if there is a headwind, you have to laboriously move your sails - first diagonally in one direction, then diagonally in the other - to move forward.

The semi-realistic sailing does not come out of the blue. Behind the game is Out of Bounds Games, led by studio founder Alexander Birke, who has maritime blood in his veins. His great-great-grandfather owned a schooner, his grandfather was a ship's electrician for Maersk, and further back, there was even a family member who was reportedly a privateer (legal pirate) for the king!

In addition to the family background, the game also draws on the studio founder's keen interest in both tabletop and live role-playing games. This means that players can shape their captain exactly as they wish.

"Are you Captain Ahab, determined to hunt down our equivalent of Moby Dick? Or are you more of a Han Solo character, using your charm and being there for your crew? It's up to the player to decide what kind of captain they want to be," says Birke.

Sailing your ship is therefore only a small part of the gameplay in Sea of Rifts. You also have to upgrade your ship (for example, with a steam engine so you are less dependent on the whims of the wind), complete missions, fight sea battles, and much more. There are lots of choices to make along the way on your perilous expeditions, and it's especially important to keep track of your crew.

"The crew has stamina points, which they regain every morning. You have to assign them to tasks on board the ship, the various chores. You use stamina to repair things or perform special actions. We try to make all systems influence each other. If you cook good food, you get stamina back, but if you cook bad food, your crew is more likely to waste it."

Sea of Rifts is inspired by games such as Dwarf Fortress and RimWorld. The structure is roguelite, and many of the game's small stories and missions are auto-generated. Therefore, you never know what awaits you when you set sail. However, your ultimate goal is always clear.

Whereas many historical explorers sailed to the end of the world, in Sea of Rifts you must find your way to its centre. From here springs a mysterious corrupting force that leads to mysterious weather phenomena and several monstrous surprises beneath the crashing waves. Yes, just like the successful Dredge, a good dash of Lovecraft has been added to the dark and gloomy ocean.

"The crew can be affected by the forces they encounter. They can grow gills or tentacle beards. They slowly lose their humanity, but maybe they also learn some useful things along the way," explains Birke.

The developer estimates that it will take 20 hours to reach the centre of the world and thus complete the game. And even though Sea of Rifts has not yet made its maiden voyage, the developers already have plans for what will happen when the credits roll.

"We have some pretty interesting ideas for how we can make New Game+ and New Game++, which also point to our entire world building, but it's probably a little too early to talk about that now."

For now, however, the developers must first and foremost ensure that Sea of Rifts is actually seaworthy and that players can navigate the game's many systems. This is being done through an open playtest, which is available for free on Steam.