What’s next for Sea of Thieves

In the three weeks since Sea of Thieves launched on Xbox One and Windows PC, players have wondered about what’s next for Rare’s open-world pirate adventure. Today, the developer offered a glimpse into the future, promising regular content updates and weekly events, as well as new threats and reasons to explore Sea of Thieves’ world.

Sea of Thieves design director Mike Chapman and executive producer Joe Neate talked about the development roadmap for the game in a new video and how Rare plans new “ways to enrich the world” and deliver “things that surprise you.”

The next big addition to Sea of Thieves is a content update called The Hungering Deep. It’s due in May and will introduce a “new AI threat” to the game that will “encourage players to interact in different ways” and “bring crews together” in new ways. The Hungering Deep will be a permanent fixture in the game, with new mechanics and rewards, but will kick off with a timed event that Rare plans to start teasing soon.

Rare is also planning weekly events that offer new challenges and time-limited exclusive rewards, like hidden treasure, for exploring the world. The goal is to “bring areas of the game that haven’t been into play yet” and reward players with “something tangible” when they, for example, manage to find a skeleton throne in a hard to reach location.

Sea of Thieves players will get two more content updates this summer with Cursed Sails, which will include a new type of ship, and Forsaken Shores, which “will introduce players to a new perilous part of the world to explore.”

Rare is also deprioritizing the development of some previously announced features: pets, which will let players own parrots, cats and monkeys; and ship captaincy, a system that would allow legendary pirates to become captains of customizable ships.

Check out the new episode of Rare’s “Inn-Side Story” above for additional details.