Giant piratey factor Sea of Thieves shall be getting customized servers as a part of a paid subscription carrier in “early 2026”, builders Uncommon have introduced right through a first-ever neighborhood direct for the sport. That is some distance from all the studio’s plans, with wider shakeups additionally within the pipeline.
This outlining of plans to ensure the great send SOT isn’t just seaworthy, however can effectively broadside the numerous different vessels competing for its avid gamers’ consideration comes with some miserable and un-piratey context. It follows Uncommon being one of the vital studios suffering from Microsoft’s mass layoffs previous this month, with Everwild being a number of the collection of in-development video games cancelled as a part of the cuts.
Within the hour-ish in their neighborhood direct and accompanying Steam weblog put up, Uncommon stated that they have got were given some paintings to do to stay other folks invested within the recreation. “We all know we haven’t hit the mark our avid gamers have been hoping for on the subject of recreation well being and function, particularly relating to being reactive to dishonest and the sport revel in on PC,” they wrote, “We’re additionally cognisant that we may well be extra attuned to the wishes and reviews of our participant base, and we’ll be running onerous to treatment this in long term.”
Cue some adjustments to how the groups running on SOT are structured, with Uncommon announcing it is expended the staff concerned with “bettering the core playability and balance of the primary recreation”. Along this, the studio’s taking a unique method to how they construction three-month seasons, with new stuff arriving each and every month so the avid gamers all the time have one thing recent to do.
Whilst seasons 17 and 18, either one of that have been teased right here, are coming quickly, the ones customized servers shall be arriving early subsequent yr. They are going to be deployed as a part of a brand new subscription’s “top rate bundle”, which’ll additionally come with different advantages. You are able to tweak the seas of your custome server to fit your each and every whim, spawning enemies, turning off enemies, operating more secure seas fleets, messing about with the devs’ cinematic digital camera. Where oysters come from is your oyster.
“Even if this subscription carrier is touchdown subsequent yr, we’ve taken the verdict to announce it great and early in order that our Companions and inventive communities can get started planning faster somewhat than later,” Uncommon wrote, “We wish to construct this toolset in partnership with the neighborhood, and operating it as a subscription style implies that we will be able to make certain ongoing funding into and advancement of customized servers as a platform.”
So, there you move. Sea of Thieves is crusing on. Hoist the mainsail.
