Becoming a Pirate in Lockdown

I’ve always been an avid gamer - from my earliest memories of Hungry Horace on the ZX Spectrum, to my SEGA Master System, Mega Drive, building my first gaming PC and now my modern day XBox, Playstation and Switch consoles (I know, that’s a lot of consoles!).

As a kid games were mainly about simple fun - collecting rings or chaos emeralds in Sonic the Hedgehog, or solving head scratching puzzles in Monkey Island. Sure, there was skill involved with these games, and tangible rewards, but I can honestly say that I don’t recall any of them really connecting with me on an emotional level, or being much of a co-op experience.

Fast-forward to modern day gaming and you’re looking at an industry that is worth more than the film and music industry combined. You can explore hugely detailed, endless worlds, or meet up with friends and go on adventures that you can get lost in for hours… or days!

It was no surprise that gaming saw a huge increase at the start of the pandemic. But what I also took joy in seeing was the games being played weren’t just isolated, single player experiences - games like Animal Crossing and Call of Duty: Warzone had a huge uptake of players, and were connecting huge number of people at a time when we were all locked away from each other.

No Longer Going Solo

I will hold my hand up and say that until 2020, my gaming preference was always crafted, single player experiences. I’d dabble in co-op with friends, playing the likes of Gears of War or A Way Out (which can’t be played any other way) - but the thought of random strangers being in my game space, or potentially spoiling my gaming experience, had always put me off going into the multiplayer arena.

The Call of Duty games get bigger and bigger each year. They’re an impressive spectacle of bombastic set pieces and fiercely competitive multiplayer - but I had always played purely for the single/solo player campaign. When I realised a local group I was in couldn’t meet for the foreseeable future, I realised that with Call of Duty: Warzone available on PC, Playstation and Xbox, and being free, it was the perfect cross-platform game to get us all playing together. And it worked even better than I imagined. We have a regular Mondays (and usually other days of the week too!) playing as a team, having a good laugh and chat as we fight across the impressive Verdansk game map.

Sometimes random players will make up our numbers in the larger team game modes. With the banter we’ve established by being friends, and having played a fair amount of matches together, it’s nice to be able to welcome someone else who is likely stuck at home, or just looking to let off some steam for the day.

Getting Lost in Greece

I have to confess that despite my new-found love of multiplayer, and the laughs I was having along the way, I also rediscovered a single player game I’d given up on over a year previously.

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is an installment in the hugely popular, long-running action adventure franchise by Ubisoft. I’d actually given up on it for being too vast and daunting. But one night during lock-down I decided to install it and give it another try… and by the time I uninstalled it several months later I’d clocked in over 80 hours of gameplay time.

Where I’d been impatient to progress through the game before, I suddenly found myself just enjoying the vastness and beauty of the game world. I’d seek out the smaller side missions, riding or running from location to location, rarely using fast-travel - and just enjoying the journey.

I don’t know if it was the effect of lockdown - that feeling of not being able to go anywhere, or do anything. But Assassin’s Creed Odyssey really became something special over those months I played it, and allowed me to loose myself for a while in a wonderfully crafted game world at a time I really needed that escape.

From Mario to the High Seas

While I was enjoying my Assassins Creed and Warzone experiences, I also chose some great Switch games that I could play with my 9 year old daughter.

We gobbled up the amazingly well designed Super Mario Odyssey (oh look, another Odyssey!), and delighted in the physics-based puzzles of Luigi’s Mansion 3. Both of those games were perfectly designed for adult and child co-op play - with my daughter playing Mario’s cap ‘Cappy’ in Odyssey, and becoming the green, jelly-like Gooigi in Luigi’s Mansion.

We played for hours together, and I loved every single moment - high-fiving each other when we managed to get past a particularly tricky part of the game, or answering my daughter’s many insightful questions - like what kinds of levels I’d create for the game.

My wife wasn’t left out either - as we’d all huddle up on the sofa for a series of Mario Kart 8 races in the evenings, or put aside an hour to play a game of Mario Party, laughing at how silly the mini games are, and growling at each other when a hard earned star was snatched from our grasp.

It was at this point that I realised I should try to find a way to play games with my father-in-law, Terry. He’s always loved PC games - being particularly fond of the Half Life series, and Unreal Tournament. Sadly once I moved from PC gaming to consoles our opportunities to play together vanished. However, with the shift to cross-platform play (such as Warzone) I realised that Rare’s Sea of Thieves may be a good retreat for us at a time when the world felt very scary and uncertain.

Setting Sail

Sea of Thieves was launched in 2018 by developer Rare, a UK-based game studio owned by Microsoft. Initial reception to the game was relatively positive, but the main feedback was that there wasn’t much to do in the game world. I played it around this time as well, and found it to be an amazing looking game (the sea animation being a particular highlight) but it didn’t really grab me. I had heard that over the years they had added more and more to the game, so back in April I got Terry all set-up with the game and a headset and we set sail…

I can’t describe how lovely the game felt. Much like my wanderings in ancient Greece - the bright sunshine and sparkling water of the Sea of Thieves just made me smile. And there was Terry by my side, both of us learning the ropes (literally) as we figured out how to manage our small sloop ship, heading off to find treasure and unlock the secrets hidden across the many islands of the game.

Unlike most multiplayer games, Sea of Thieves has a flat progression structure. If you’ve played the game for years or days, you are just as powerful and able as each other. Each ‘map’ of the game only has 4 other player populated ships - so as you sail around you may well spy another player ship on the horizon, or moored, unseen, on the other side of an island you’ve just pulled up beside. It really does produce some memorable gaming adventures. Sometimes other crews will be friendly - you’ll raise a flagon of grog and play a tune together, or they can go after you and your treasure.

Terry and I went on treasure hunts - following map clues around lush tropical islands, fighting ghostly pirate skeletons to collect their skulls and rushing back to the nearest outpost to get in-game coin. We also battled huge sea creatures in the middle of vast tropical storms, evaded other player ships trying to sink and plunder our treasure, and did our best to defend ourselves against sudden attacks from the deadly kraken.

My daughter watched Terry and my initial adventures, completely in awe. I don’t think she’d come across such a game before - and knowing her Pops was there too - fighting and sailing alongside her Dad was kind of magical. Terry came through the speakers on our TV, so we could all chat and laugh as we set off on our next adventure. At the time my daughter was also getting more skilled at navigating a first person game through her recent discovery of Minecraft… and one day I realised that with me on the beta of Microsoft’s phone based streaming xCloud that we could increase our crew to include her too.

Three generations in a crew on the Sea of Thieves - it was, and continues to be, one of the most special gaming experiences I’ve ever had. We play pretty much every Saturday now. The game keeps getting better and better, and it appears I’m not alone in my love of becoming a pirate, as the game has gone from strength to strength during 2020. Rare has announced in July 2020 that they had over 15 million players… with over 3.3 million playing June 2020 alone!

It’s a fabulous game, and perfect in tone for my daughter - even though she hides below deck when we’re attacked by a megalodon or kraken - taking her role of boarding up the holes in our hull, and bailing out the sea water very seriously.

However, that’s not the final tale of how games have connected my family over the periods of lockdown in 2020…

Minecraft

As with most people in 2020, we’ve all had to adjust how we’ve been able to celebrate together. Birthday parties have been virtual Zoom affairs - or a lot quieter than originally planned. Being on Microsoft’s Game Pass I’ve had access to a large variety of games, including the first party games such as Sea of Thieves and Minecraft. I installed the latter on a whim - I planned to play it myself, as I heard so much about it, and had never really played it properly.

My daughter spied it on the game list and played it… and played it… and played it! I now joke that if she played much more she would start to look like one of the cuboid-based characters in the game!

As with Warzone and Sea of Thieves, Minecraft is a cross-platform game. So we quickly realised she could play with her friends, whether they were playing on Xbox, Playstation, PC, Switch or even iPad! As we set her up on a parent-controlled profile to safely play with her friends, the seed of an idea was planted.

Plans for her 10th birthday were constantly changing with the lockdown rules… and it was looking increasingly likely that a virtual party would be on the cards. It was then that we asked if she’d like to have her party IN Minecraft. Her eyes lit-up… and I think she was actually more excited about such an idea than a physical party at times!

Rather than just a free-for-all, we talked about games she could set-up for her friends to play with her for a few hours, before having tea together over Zoom. It worked so well - there were a lot of amazing games she created: Deadly Archery (each player aiming at a target that was linked to the insta-death of another player!), Pigs on Ice Racing… which was… bonkers, Zombie Tag, Hide and Seek and an intricate obstacle course.

I tried my hand at building a maze for the them to solve… I got a little carried away, and the final product was maybe just a bit too complicated for them (or me!) to solve easily. But the glass top helped me float above and navigate them to the exit.

She continues to have regular play-dates on Minecraft. A friend on video chat next to her. The game really is perfect for her creative mind, she watches countless videos on how to create more and more intricate things. She’s even started using the console/command line for the game… which makes the developer in me smile!

Connecting through Gaming

I honestly hadn’t realised just how much games had helped during lockdown until I prepared and wrote this article. They have helped me personally, kept me in touch with my friends and family, and crossed the generational divide to truly unite us in a time when the world has been in a very strange place indeed. I’d like to say thank you to all the teams that work so hard on producing and maintaining these games, across their various platforms, allowing us to lose ourselves for a while, sharing adventures in such wonderfully crafted worlds.

If you ever come across someone looking to connect and make friends when you’re gaming, make them feel welcome, and try to have a laugh with them - you never know what they may be using games to escape from.