A new developer diary for Sea of Thieves has gone live featuring the team from Rare playing the game and showcasing some of the content from the upcoming multiplayer survival/adventure title.

The video is only eight minutes long and it features the crew using the compass to find a treasure. They start by using the compass to locate the direction of the treasure chest and then sail off and make bank.

Things quickly don’t go as planned and we begin to see how emergent gameplay can take place as players do some digging, some combat and some switch sailing. Check it out below.

The journey starts with the crew working to find the treasure on a small isle but things quickly turn sour on their way toward the island when another rival ship hounds them down and begins firing on them.

The treasure hunters park the ship while two members go fish the chest off the little island and then return it to the ship.

One thing worth pointing out is the absolutely gorgeous water effects. Next to Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, these are some of the best looking real-time ocean waves featured in a game. The water looks so crisp and clear and there is a lot of subsurface illumination going on so you can see where the lighter parts of the water are more transparent as opposed to the darker parts. Again, it looks gorgeous.

The placidity of the journey is short lived, though, as the cannon fire increases on the development team, and they opt to take the treasure and deliver it to the rival team. This plans barely succeeds but they manage to pull it off using some sharp sailing skills and timely use of dexterity.

The combat is standard fare but the the ship damage effects look pretty cool. I was especially impressed with the water filling up the lower decks as the boat takes on more damage. It gave the game that much needed sense of urgency as battles take tolls on both the crew and the ship on which they sail.

I like the way the game looks, and the playability seems okay. I’m a little worried that scouring small islands for treasure and engaging in (or avoiding) PvP could get tiresome really quickly. Hopefully they have a lot more activities to do other than finding and selling/trading treasure. The concept isn’t bad… it’s not bad at all.