Just learned something cool about SoT's water that I wanted to share.

Most games use simple Gerstner waves - basically 8-10 wave patterns stacked together. It works fine, but your brain eventually notices the repetition.

Sea of Thieves uses FFT (Fast Fourier Transform) ocean simulation - the same system VFX studios used for Titanic, Waterworld, and Pirates of the Caribbean. This is based on researcher Jerry Tessendorf's work from 2001.

**How it works:**

* Instead of placing individual waves, the system calculates hundreds of wave components at once
* Different wave sizes move at different speeds (big swells roll slow, small ripples move fast)
* Waves naturally interact - peaks combine to make bigger peaks, peaks + valleys cancel out
* Creates a heightfield that physically sculpts the water surface every frame

**The cost:** Rare's engineers admitted this can eat up to 40% of frame time when looking at the ocean. Most studios would've used shortcuts, but Rare committed to keeping it.

Then they stylized it with that painted adventure book aesthetic while keeping the complex physics underneath. Early tests showed that simplifying the simulation made it stop feeling like real water, so they kept the expensive system running.

Pretty cool that they prioritized this for a multiplayer pirate game. The ocean really does feel alive because of it.

**If you found this explanation helpful, I'd love to hear your feedback! It really helps me create better game dev content. Feel free to DM me with any thoughts or suggestions.**

Sea of Thieves uses the same ocean simulation tech as Hollywood movies (Titanic, Pirates of the Caribbean)