Some memories refuse to stay anchored in the past. Even now in 2026, I still remember the surge that swept through Sea of Thieves back in 2020 as if I were standing on the deck of my sloop, watching the horizon catch fire with new sails. That year was the biggest one Rare's cooperative pirate adventure had ever seen, and I had a front-row seat from behind the wheel.
Back at the start of 2020, Rare announced that Sea of Thieves had reached 10 million players in total. For a game that had launched over two years earlier, that felt like a solid haul, but nothing could have prepared my crew for what happened next. By mid-2020, the community had topped 15 million players. That meant the player base had grown by 50% in a little over six months. The number moved like a tide that forgot how to recede, rising past landmarks we had once assumed would take years to cross.
I remember scouring every update for an explanation. The game had been played more in the first six months of 2020 than in all of 2019 combined. June 2020 alone pulled in 3.3 million players, making it the biggest single month the game had ever recorded. That was not just a wave; it was a whole ocean rearranging itself under our hulls.
The biggest reason for this resurgence was the Steam release. When Sea of Thieves finally docked on Steam in June 2020, it sold over 1 million copies there alone in a staggeringly short window. That single storefront acted like a powder keg, and the match was the game's reputation for cooperative chaos. Suddenly, the concurrent player totals climbed, and a fresh, active community sprouted on Steam like a coral reef spreading across a warm current. Veteran pirates like me found ourselves surrounded by wide-eyed newcomers asking how to raise anchor or why the chest was crying.
Even old-timers had to admit the energy was infectious. The Steam launch did more than add numbers; it changed the texture of every session. You could feel the shift in the taverns, on the outposts, and in the frantic voice chat when a galleon of strangers tried to form an alliance. I remember one evening off Golden Sands when a brand-new Steam player accidentally fired himself out of a cannon into a rock. Instead of griefing him, three crews gathered and turned the moment into a firework display. That was the magic of the boom: numbers became people.
Looking back from 2026, those milestones still matter. Rare and Microsoft had every reason to be pleased. The plan for Sea of Thieves to receive new boosts on the Xbox Series X later in 2020 made the future look even brighter. We did not know exactly how the next-generation upgrade would play out, but after watching the player count climb from 10 million to 15 million in roughly half a year, it felt safe to trust the wind.
Here is a quick look at the numbers that defined that unforgettable run:
| Milestone | Time frame | Count |
|---|---|---|
| Total players at start of 2020 | Early 2020 | 10 million |
| Total players by mid-2020 | Mid-2020 | 15 million |
| Community growth in just over six months | First half of 2020 | 50% |
| Players in June 2020 alone | June 2020 | 3.3 million |
| Steam copies sold after release | June 2020 onward | Over 1 million |
The beauty of Sea of Thieves has always been that every session writes its own story. In 2020, the game itself wrote one of the greatest stories a live-service title could hope for. I was just another pirate along for the ride, but the sails were full, the sea was crowded, and for a few glorious months, the horizon never stopped moving.