Sea Of Thieves Beta Now Available As Rare Continues To Address Issues

Update 2: Sea of Thieves' beta should now be available to everyone who is meant to have access, although some new pre-orders may have to jump through an extra step to get in. The beta was offline for a period of time for maintenance but is now back online. Rare continues to work on issues that players are running into.

Update: Rare has announced it is in the process of deploying a fix for the "too early" error message that many players have encountered when trying to access the Sea of Thieves closed beta. "Good news for those currently experiencing the 'too early' error when trying to access the Closed Beta--a fix will be rolled out for you in the next few hours! We'll let you know when this goes live," the developer tweeted. We'll update this story with any further developments.

The original story follows.

The Sea of Thieves closed beta has officially begun. The beta is going on now for select Xbox One and PC players, but it appears many are currently having issues accessing it.

Like the Sea of Thieves technical alpha that took place back in December, the closed beta is only available to those who either joined the Sea of Thieves Insider Program prior to December 1, 2017 or pre-ordered the game. Players who fell into the latter camp received the beta automatically if they pre-ordered Sea of Thieves digitally, while those who reserved the title at retail had to redeem a code in order to install the beta. However, it appears many pre-purchasers are being met with a "too early" error message when they attempt to launch the beta.

Developer Rare has addressed the problem on Twitter and says it is currently looking into a solution, though the studio didn't offer a precise timetable for when it expects the issue to be resolved. "We're aware some players are getting a 'too early' error when attempting to launch the Sea of Thieves Closed Beta. We're currently all hands on deck investigating and will provide updates ASAP," the developer tweeted.

Sea of Thieves is an open-world, co-op adventure in which players form pirate crews and search for treasure. The closed beta is currently scheduled to run until 12 AM PT / 3 AM ET / 8 AM GMT on January 29. Rather than featuring a portion of the full game, Rare says it crafted a tailored experience for the beta "that offers a true taste of the pirate life."

Sea of Thieves launches for Xbox One and PC on March 20 and will support cross-play between the two platforms. Ahead of the game's release, Microsoft will sell a limited quantity of cool-looking Sea of Thieves Xbox One controllers, which come with a Ferryman Clothing DLC set and 14-day trials for Xbox Live Gold and Xbox Game Pass. Microsoft also announced that Sea of Thieves will be the first Xbox One-exclusive available on Game Pass the day it launches.