Major Nelson accidentally mentioned Pirates of the Caribbean in Sea of Thieves in February

The best way of keeping a secret is to let as few people as possible know about it. And four months ago, we got a prime example of how this is true even in a giant organisation like the Xbox team.

When Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb interviewed the Sea of Thieves executive producer Joe Neate in February, he talked about the future of the game while casually saying:

"If you had the IP from like Pirates of the Caribbean, I don't think you guys could do that, I think you're doing it so much better than anything like that,"

Clearly, Major Nelson had no clue that Rare was in fact working on a Pirates of the Caribbean/Sea of Thieves collaboration at that time and that this was going to be one of the big surprises during Microsoft's E3 press conference. Neate, on the other hand, did of course know all about this and laughed very nervously as you can see in the video.

In the latest Major Nelson podcast, he took the opportunity to apologize to Neate, and at the same time explain that this is how secretive everything actually is (which makes all the leaks even more fascinating):

"You have this look on your face. I didn't know. Clearly, you knew. You had this look on your face, which was like a deer in the headlights. I apologise that I put you in that position, Joe. I feel terrible, but it was a fun moment.

Yeah, it was a... Again, I apologise. But again, that's the level of secrecy that you had. People think that I know all the secrets, and I certainly don't."

So there you have it. Not even the Director of Programming at the Xbox team knows what is coming, which is great as it can lead to really funny situations like these.