Book Review: Sea of Thieves: The Art of Piracy
- The Artbook Collector
- 3 hours ago
- 6 min read
May 14th 2025
Sea of Thieves from Rare continues to be a hugely popular online game, even 7 years after its launch. Following a large amount of additional content being rolled out by the developers, and more recently it’s move to PlayStation, the release of a second artbook is perfectly timed for players old and new.
Sea of Thieves: The Art of Piracy is a look behind the scenes at the art for the game, from 2018 until present day. The book is available on May 20th 2025 and comes by way of Titan Books, long time publisher of artbooks for video games. It’s a follow up to the first artbook, the now unfortunately rare 2018 release, The Art of Sea of Thieves. This will be a relief to many that missed out before, presenting an opportunity to finally add a book for the seafaring title to their collection. I have now sat with a copy of the book and can share my thoughts on whether this loot is worth your time.
My reviews cover the following 5 points to break down what to expect and my thoughts on the book; build quality, content, credits, use of space and value.
Build Quality
This release comes with a hardcover, 240 pages and high quality paper. This is all business as usual for a video game artbook and that’s never a bad thing. The binding is also very strong and not to tight on the signatures, as the pages lay fully flat when opened.
Where Sea of Thieves: The Art of Piracy is interesting though, is that it doesn’t feel like it comes from Titan Books. Collectors will be aware that for video games, the two big publishers are Titan Books and Dark Horse. Typically, Dark Horse release their books as portrait hardcovers, with no dust jacket and at a size of approximately 23.5cm x 31cm (9”x12”). Titan Books do portrait and landscape books, but the former are a similar size, often just a little shorter and with a dust jacket.
The Art of Sea of Thieves was released by Dark Horse in their format, but having moved over to Titan Books, I was expecting a dust jacket and slightly different dimensions. This is not the case however, as it is presented in the exact same way, which is highly unusual. Perhaps this was a request from Rare to have them match, as the previous book is referenced in the intro, implying this is a direct follow up. Whatever the reason, this was unexpected and the only instance I can think of where this has happened. This is no way a bad thing and great if you are fortunate enough to own the first artbook.
Below are a couple of comparisons, the first is to a standard Titan Books release, in which you can see a small size difference. The second is to The Art of Sea of Thieves, which shows the matching format.
Content
If you have seen art online or own the first book, you know you’ll be getting some superb art for charismatic character designs and locations that pop with life. The style and colour palette of Sea of Thieves is a part of the games appeal and adds to its sense of fun. I’m not an art critic, but if you’re a fan of the game and its visual presentation, you’ll also be a fan of the art too.
As you would expect from covering 7 years of content, there is a lot packed in to Sea of Thieves: The Art of Piracy. This is a positive and a negative though, depending on what you want from a book like this.
The chapters are split into years and each is presented in the same way, with some additions depending on what was added that year. For the most part though, they feature sections of art for characters, cosmetics, enemies, and changes, all in that order. It’s a nice and easy approach to follow that tracks the rollout of the added content. For each segment you will find concept art, illustrations and 3D models, along with commentary that speaks to the game and lore of what you are seeing.
You get a lot of the charming and fun art style of Sea of Thieves for all aspects of the game. People that have been playing for a long time will enjoy a look at the updates, including the new locations, seasons, Tall Tales and more. The Hungering Deep, Devil’s Roar and Fate of the Damned are just a few of the content updates people will find, which also doesn’t include the post-launch cosmetics, characters and pets that have been added to Rare’s pirate world.
The downside to this is that because it covers so much, not everything has space to shine. The previous book has many pages dedicated to early sketches and concepts, however, you won’t find that here. In the goal of trying to touch on as much of the content as possible, it means that a lot pages and sections feature final designs only or depict just a single moment. That's not to say the book lacks these elements, it still has a healthy amount, only that there is less of them than before. It does feature less environment art too, which was a highlight of The Art of Sea of Thieves, so this came as a disappointment, but what you do get is spectacular as always.
The sections on changes are a nice inclusion and puts of spotlight on the work that was done for the game each year. Without this, it would look like more art was created for assets that were simply added on, so the thought to point out the work of the rest of the team at Rare paints the full picture of the game's growth.
The text describes the lore and backstory of characters and locations, with some speaking to the game itself. This is all well placed and informative, without overstaying its welcome or coming across as vague and generic.
Credits
It is unfortunate that I have to report the worst for credits, because there are none. In an artbook, if artist names are not given on each page, which isn’t uncommon, then I would expect to see a list in the front or the back of the book instead. Neither happened in this case, which is a shame. There are some names listed on the Acknowledgements page, but these are not the names of concept artists or designers that created the wonderful art the book is full of. The short list does include directors, but this isn’t a substitute for entire teams. People wanting to know who worked on the game will have to search online, something that shouldn't be the case.
Use of Space
Sea of Thieves: The Art of Piracy does a great job at filling each page and not wasting space. The layouts are easy to read, with a mix of image sizes and the inclusion of double page spreads. Each page is laid out differently to mix it up and the background colours change too. There is nothing fancy here, but that often works best and allows for as much art to fit in the book as possible, without compromising the quality of it.
Value
The book comes with an RRP of £34.99/ $44.99, a good price point and on the lower end on what you can expect to pay for release this size. Better yet, at the time of writing this, you can already find this up to 18% off just a week before the official release. This information is based on Amazon, a site I use for my reviews to maintain consistency.
For a quality hardcover and 240 pages of art, there is good value here, especially considering the price increases found for most things you buy now, a great result for those wanting a copy
Verdict
Sea of Thieves: The Art of Piracy delivers a large amount of outstanding art that will be more than welcome on the shelves of players, in particular those that have been playing for a long time or own the first book. While there is less early art than seen in that last book, the design here has allowed many years of work to be given a showcase and it is all well presented. The price of the book in combination with the timing of its release is fantastic and makes it recommendable for those that have been out at sea for a long time, as well as those that are new to the life of piracy.
If you are interested in ordering Sea of Thieves: The Art of Piracy for your own collection, you can do so here;
Tags;
Based On: #SeaOfThieves Publisher: #TitanBooks Studio: #Rare #MicrosoftGameStudios
