Sea of Thieves Fan? Sea of Conquest Turns Pirate Life Into Free Fleet Strategy

Sea of Thieves sold millions of players on one idea: being a pirate with your friends is a great way to spend an evening. But it also asks a lot: a full crew, hours of sailing, and the risk of losing everything to a better-organized ship.

Sea of Conquest: Pirate War takes the same fantasy (treasure, rival crews, sea battles) and moves you from the deck to the captain’s cabin. You don’t steer the wheel in first person. You build the fleet, pick the crew and plan the war. It is free, and it runs natively on Windows.

What is Sea of Conquest?

Sea of Conquest: Pirate War is a pirate strategy MMO from FunPlus International AG, the studio behind big strategy hits like State of Survival. It started on mobile, passed 100 million downloads during its soft launch according to FunPlus, and then came to PC with its own client.

You play a captain sailing the Devil’s Seas. You upgrade your flagship and its cabins, recruit heroes with their own skills, explore islands and treasure maps, and fight alongside your guild in battles that can involve hundreds of players.

Your crew of heroes is the heart of the game. Each one changes how your fleet fights. (FunPlus trailer still)

Why Sea of Thieves players will get it immediately

The pirate fantasy is complete. Ships, treasure maps, island exploration, skeletons, rival crews: the whole checklist is here, wrapped in a stylized, Pirates-of-the-Caribbean look.

Your ship is your identity. In Sea of Thieves you customize your ship’s look. In Sea of Conquest you go further: you build and upgrade it, cabin by cabin, so your ship becomes a real progression system.

Crews still matter, just at a bigger scale. Sea of Thieves is about four friends on one ship. Here, the “crew” is your guild: dozens of captains coordinating to control islands and win the season’s big fights.

What is different (and why you might prefer it)

• No hour-long sessions required. Strategy games run on timers and short sessions. Twenty minutes to upgrade, send an expedition and join a guild battle is enough.
• No losing everything to one bad fight. Progress builds over time instead of sinking with your ship.
• Planning beats reflexes. If you like the idea of pirate battles more than the frantic cannon reloading, this is the version for you.

The honest trade-off: it is a free-to-play strategy game, so it has the usual timers and an optional shop. If you hate that model, you will know in your first session.

Your first evening: how to start well

1. Install it with the button below. It’s free.
2. Follow the early quest chain. It unlocks your first heroes and upgrades quickly.
3. Pick a small core crew. Upgrade three or four heroes properly rather than ten badly. It is the most common beginner mistake in this genre.
4. Join an active guild on day one. Guild help speeds up upgrades, and the big naval battles are where the game comes alive.
5. Keep something building. Never close the game with an empty upgrade queue.

Who it is for, and who should skip it

Try it if you love pirates but can’t always find a full Sea of Thieves crew, you enjoy strategy and long-term progression, or you want a pirate game that fits into short sessions.

Skip it if you want first-person sailing and swordplay, or if free-to-play timers frustrate you. Then Sea of Thieves (or Skull and Bones) is still your game.

Our take

Think of Sea of Conquest as the admiral’s version of Sea of Thieves: less hands-on chaos, more planning, more people on your side. It costs nothing to find out if the captain’s chair suits you better than the deck.

Played a few sessions? Leave your verdict in the comments below. Tell other pirates how it compares to Sea of Thieves for you, and whether it kept you coming back.