Following Sea of Thieves’ seventh birthday celebrations back in March, developer Rare has cast its spyglass toward new horizons, outlining its vision for the multiplayer pirate adventure’s future in its first-ever Community Direct livestream. And those plans include the introduction of multi-ship private servers and paid custom servers “early” next year.
Today’s stream wasn’t perhaps the most revelatory of affairs, despite its hour-long runtime, but it did see Rare admitting to having dropped the ball in terms of game health and narrative momentum in recent years. Both are things it’s talked about before, but it’s now detailed some of the ways it hopes to keep players onboard as Sea of Thieves sails into year eight and beyond.
To that end, the studio talked at length about “finding balance” between introducing new features, reinvigorating and expanding some of Sea of Thieves’ neglected legacy systems – including the likes of captaincy, hourglass battles, and guilds – tackling long-standing bugs and issues, and implementing some of the community’s most-requested features.
As to what that’ll look like in practical terms, from Sea of Thieves’ upcoming Season 17 onward, seasons will “focus more consistently on reaching a broader set of player motivations”. That means a mix of new stuff, revisiting previous content to “tease out more value”, plus a renewed sense of narrative and world-building to ensure seasons are “always moving the world forward”. The studio did, however, stress story won’t be “front and centre”, implying the likes of Tall Tales and long-abandoned Adventures are now well and truly a thing of the past.
Starting with Season 17, each three-month-long season will follow a fixed pattern: month one will focus on “reinvigorating the sandbox” and “stirring the pot around a theme and a set of motivations” to keep things fresh; month two will bring an “expanded approach to live events”, while month three will introduce some kind of community call to action. Additionally, recurring seasonal events will now be run on a more predictable schedule: Community Weekends, for instance, will take place during the first month of a season, and Gold and Glory in the third.
Using the upcoming Season 17: Smugglers’ Tide as an example, Rare’s revised plan means month one will bring the new Smugglers faction, new hideouts around the world, new smuggling runs that reward players for ferrying dangerous cargo, and a refresh for the likes of shipwrecks and skeleton ships, which will both harbour valuable smuggler cargo.
Month two introduces a new heist-inspired live event, bringing the community together to battle over a sea fort location (Rare notes these live events won’t be one-and-done, but will instead enter some sort of rotation), and month three gives Skeleton Forts a Reaper-themed makeover. So alongside the likes of a new loot pool, players can anticipate being invaded by the Dark Brethren and their ghost ships mid-battle, switching crews’ role from invaders to defenders. All that and a narrative thread to bring the whole season together.
And that’ll be the seasonal template players can expect from here on out. Season 18, for instance, is aiming to revitalise Sea of Thieves’ long-neglected Devil’s Roar area, introducing a banished faction of Dark Ancients, hidden shrines, a new ancient threat, plus reinvigorated Emissary gameplay. Beyond that, things are a lot vaguer, with Rare teasing a “multi-year” vision it’ll talk about in the next Community Direct, in six months’ time.
All of which brings us to Rare’s final reveal: confirmation that custom servers – AKA Custom Seas – are coming in “early 2026”. These are set to feature a host of options and toggles, enabling players to turn off the likes of the kraken or storms, spawn in chests, break current crew limits, and more. They’ll also include access to the tools Rare uses to make its trailers, including a cinematic camera. The catch is all this is being labelled as a “premium” feature, and will require a regular subscription to access – Rare’s justification being that custom servers are expensive to develop, maintain, and continue evolving.
Additionally, Sea of Thieves’ Safer Seas mode – which essentially gives a single ship and its crew access to a private server version of the game, albeit one with some restrictions – will be expanded to allow fleets of friends to sail together. This announcement came amid Rare’s chatter of custom servers, and it’s not entirely clear if this is a free addition or if it’ll require the custom server subscription. I’ve asked Microsoft for clarification.
Sea of Thieves’ inaugural Community Direct is a fairly meandering thing, but probably still worth a watch for some insight into Rare’s thinking (there’s also talk of an overhaul for its long-running Insiders programme, which includes the ditching of its NDAs and the ushering in of a new spoiler-filled future), just don’t expect much in the way of specific reveals.
Today’s Sea of Thieves Community Direct does, of course, follow sweeping layoffs and project cancellations across Microsoft and its Xbox division last week. One notable casualty was Rare’s fantasy action-adventure Everwild, announced all the way back in 2019. In the wake of its cancellation, Rare veteran Gregg Mayles – who directed the likes of Sea of Thieves and Banjo-Kazooie before helming Everwild – was confirmed to be departing the studio after 35 years.
