Sea of Thieves to receive a content update

Sea of Thieves launched just three weeks ago and after years of hype surrounded the game it is a little disappointing to see how quickly that seems to have died down. Our own Rachel reviewed the colourful pirate simulator and she said while there was fun to be had and the visuals were stunning it lacked direction and could feel quite empty, relying on players to make their own fun amongst repetitive gameplay.

Thankfully the team at Rare haven’t been clogging their ears and hoping we all just settle into the game play loop and have actually instead decided to address how they can expand on the existing game. While April will continue to see the team focus on priority feedback points the direction for May is less on bucketing out water and more about looking to the horizon.

Joe Neate, Executive Producer for Sea of Thieves,  had this to say on the games direction and focus for the coming months. “Our first content update, The Hungering Deep, will release in May and bring with it a new AI threat to the world. Crews will have to work together to discover and defeat this threat as part of a unique event.” Neate goes on to say “We will also be introducing a number of new mechanics to assist players on this adventure, and there will be unique rewards that players can earn as part of this event. Beyond this, we will begin our weekly events programme during May, where we introduce new mechanics and give players fun new ways to play with weekly events and rewards.”

This all sounds like a development team ready to engage with their player base which has been a proven success for many other titles in the past. Beyond The Hungering Deep we’ve also been promised two more Sea of Thieves updates with Forsaken Shores, which will open up new lands to explore, and Cursed Sails, which will include a new type of ship.

While other features are being deprioritised, such as Pets and Ship Captaincy, the team has assured the community that these aren’t gone but just on the back burner while they refocus on other areas. To add to all of these much needed updates the team also made it very clear there was no intention to segregate the player base and that all additional content would be free of charge.

You can see a full talk through with Neate and Design Director, Mike Chapman, below.