During its recent community direct for Sea of Thieves, developer Rare outlined some of the steps that it will be taking to ensure the success of the pirate-themed online game in the short and long-term future. In the direct, while the studio acknowledged that it has been open with the game’s community when it came to updates and plans, it also noted that it could be doing better. With that in mind, one of the big steps being taken by the studio is to relaunch the Sea of Thieves Insider Programme.
Along with this, Rare has also said that it will be taking more community feedback into account when it comes to developing future seasonal content for Sea of Thieves. The reboot of the Sea of Thieves Insider Programme is slated to happen in 2026, and will add in a number of different community-centric programmes together.
“This is only the first step in opening us up to more community input, as starting from next Season we’re also planning a Seasonal Big Listen with our Insider Programme members.=,” said the studio. “We’ll be asking how you found the content we’ve recently released, and more broadly how you’re finding the whole package: performance, cheaters, bugs, enjoyability and more. This will allow us to better track sentiment over time and identify gaps for content that addresses a desire or opportunity within our current feature set. And, of course, in line with this focus on transparency, we’ll share the results of these surveys with you, our players.”
Rare has also revealed that it will be refining its approach to developing seasonal content for Sea of Thieves. To that end, the development team is being restructured, along with a change in how seasonal content for the game is made and released. Taking a three-month Sea of Thieves season into account, the cadence of released content will be split into three phases; one for each month.
On month one, new sandbox features and worldbuilding setup for the season will be introduced, while month two will follow this up with the headlining live event of the season making its debut, along with expansions to the game’s ongoing story and lore. The third month of the season will serve as a call-to-action for players that might be revisiting the game, and will involve a revitalisation for the sandbox gameplay content in the game.
Along with this, Sea of Thieves will continue to get live events, including a Community Weekend always being run in the first month of a season, and a Gold & Glory event in the last month. Since this will be a major shift for the studio, there will also be a transitionary period. Because of this, Season 16 will not be getting a Community Weekend, while Season 17’s Community Weekend will take place in early August.
Season 17, slated to be kicked off in August, will follow the aforementioned structure, with month one introducing the Smuggler’s League, along with new features like smugglers’ hideouts and new loot types, as well as Smugglers’ Runs. Month two will feature heists coming to Sea of Thieves as the headlining live event of the season, with season three focusing on refreshing the Skeleton Fort experience.
Rare has also teased that season 18, which will come to Sea of Thieves later in the year, will have a focus on Devil’s Roar, and the gameplay will revolve around boosting the role Emissaries play in the title.
Sea of Thieves is available on PC, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S.