Sea of Thieves, Rare’s shared world pirate exploration game, has been enjoying nice resurgence as of late. With the next expansion, The Arena focusing on competitive PvP, the development team is taking time to refine the combat. More importantly, it will look into making cross-platform play optional.
In its latest developer update, Rare’s Joe Neate says the developer has been listening to feedback from players regarding The Arena. Though the cross-play support is enjoyed, a level playing field is also important.
“Obviously, Sea of Thieves is a cross-play title, and we love what this brings to the game itself,” he said. “We love that people on PC and console can play together. It brings so many benefits, but we’ve also been listening to feedback from our players, especially with Arena on the horizon, so that everybody feels they have the option of a level playing field.
“We’ve been discussing this at length internally and we’ve arrived at a solution and we are starting work on the implementation. We want to make sure to give that option before Arena arrives. If you’re playing on console and you’re using a controller, you’ll have the option to only matchmake with other players on console using a controller.”
Neate says that there will be “two pools” of players, but the option to change this will also be available. It won’t just be for The Arena either – the separate pools will apply to the entire game. “We’ve heard a lot of feedback around this, we’ve talked about it a lot, and we definitely believe this is the right approach, especially with that competitive mode coming. Once we do implement this, the option will be available whether you’re going into Adventure mode or into Arena, so it will be available across the entire game.
“We will be supporting mouse and keyboard on console. If you decided to use mouse and keyboard on console, you’ll automatically be put into the cross-play pool.”
Changes will also be coming to the game’s combat next week to make it feel less clunky and more fluid overall. “The changes of this update (on February 6th) will get us some way there, but we have further updates, especially as we look to Arena on the horizon, where that focus on combat is really important.
“Beyond what we’ve done for this update, we’re really looking at combat, how can we make things more fluid, less clunky, and how can we continue to make sure that each weapon has a clearly defined role.”
The Arena currently doesn’t have a release date aside from “early 2019”. The mode itself is a race to find treasure and battling any opposing players that you may come across. It will introduce a new tavern and a new trading company called The Sea Dogs, which dole out PvP-related rewards. Stay tuned for more information on when The Arena will go live.