Rare Replay & Sea of Thieves were a "one-two punch"

We talked to Rare boss Craig Duncan about what was a big E3 for the studio, as their past work and their latest project both featured prominently during this year's show, with Rare Replay bringing back thirty years of gaming history, while Sea of Thieves has the studio looking ahead to the future (presumably through a spyglass with a cutlass in hand).

"I love the idea of us announcing something brand new from Rare, but also celebrating our heritage," Duncan told us, explaining that he "got really passionate about doing this one-two punch of like next year at E3 we're going to go out, we're going to talk about thirty years of Rare, we're going to give the fans this great collection with all this hidden, secret stuff from the studio, and then we're going to announce a new game."

"And what I thought that did is it allowed us to celebrate everything that makes Rare what it is, but also do what Rare's always done, which is do something new and fresh and different."

Rare Replay is due out on Xbox One on August 4, while Sea of Thieves is still somewhere far off on the horizon. Announcement trailers for both can be seen below.