https://www.gamespot.com/articles/sea-of-thieves-seeing-unprecedented-demand-passes-/1100-6457743/

Sea of Thieves is immensely popular--and that's part of the reason why the game is having widespread technical issues. In a developer update, Rare studio head Craig Duncan and executive producer Joe Neate discussed the game's problems and what's being done to fix them. They also revealed that the Xbox One and PC game reached 1 million players in its first 48 hours.

"We have seen unprecedented numbers coming in to Sea of Thieves and playing Sea of Thieves. The interest has been insane; the amount of people playing has been mind-blowing," Neate said.