Sea of Thieves sets sail for a new ocean and a promising 2024

Sea of Thieves is about to celebrate its sixth anniversary, and the waves on its shore couldn’t look any prettier. Still with a huge user base, 35 million players according to their figures, Rare is ready to take the next step and open the door to a whole new ecosystem, PlayStation, as well as continue to deliver new features that make life at sea even more enjoyable.

Ahead of these important events, Meristation had the opportunity to speak with Rare’s Pirate Lords, Sea of Thieves Executive Producer Joe Neate, and Creative Director Mike Chapman to learn more about the process of expanding into bluer seas and get a glimpse into the game’s future.

Preparing Sea of Thieves for new users (and seas)

One of the first topics that was touched upon was the whole preparation process that Sea of Thieves went through to reach new platforms. Although not many details were given, it was mentioned to us that they had already opened the possibility of bringing the title to the PlayStation waters since 2023, and that this helped them to bring the features added in the last two seasons to make the title “more discoverable and accessible”.

“The opportunity to bring the game to PlayStation arose at some point last year,” said Mike Chapman. “Some of the content and feature decisions we made towards the end of last year were aimed at making the game more discoverable and accessible. The game has grown so much in six years, there is a lot of content in the game and a lot of it can be hard to find.”

Seasons 10 and 11 introduced two features that they feel make Sea of Thieves more accessible. The first is Safer Seas, a sea outside the shared game world that allows players to explore with friends without worrying about difficulty or encounters. The other is the introduction of the Quest Table, which provides on-demand access to the game’s full repertoire of activities, so players will always have something to do.

“The ability to play Sea of Thieves outside of the shared world (Safer Seas) is honestly something we’ve talked about every year since the original launch. It’s a feature the community has been asking us for a long time, but I think it goes towards how rich Sea of Thieves has become,” commented Chapman. “Most recently in Season 11, bringing everything together with a quest table with on-demand experiences really cut down on session time by making players feel like they were accomplishing something meaningful. We’ve gone all out with the content we’ve created in the second half of last year to make sure the game is more accessible than ever, and from a timing standpoint, that works really well with a whole new audience coming to the game as part of PlayStation.”

The process of bringing Sea of Thieves to PlayStation

But it’s one thing to prepare things for the community, the current and the future, and another to bring your game to a new platform. Although Rare mentioned in their announcement trailer that this would be the first PlayStation title in the studio’s history, they were not worried about this, as they had previous experience that helped them better understand how to bring development to this new platform.

“Historically, we hadn’t released anything on PC until we released Sea of Thieves on Windows 10, and then we brought it to Steam a few years later,” Chapman begins. “Going through the process of bringing this game to a new platform on Steam really taught us a lot about what the approach should be. Taking this to the platform, the order of how to build things, also how to build a community in a new place and communicate and talk and listen and learn. Now we know what the things are that we need to attack in order to navigate any platform. This time there are new things to learn and part of that is the relationship with Sony, going in and building the relationship, connecting with the right people who have been very helpful.

Something is happening here that would only happen thanks to this game, and that will surely be a great anecdote of this historic moment in gaming. Joe Neate comments on one of the first meetings with the people at PlayStation, where they demonstrated that there is no better integration than in a game of Sea of Thieves. From having an adventure to talking strategy and being able to connect, because “what better way to start a relationship?”

“We took them to a galleon,” Neate begins. “We took these two Sony reps that we met and said ‘why not,’ let’s have a meeting about Sea of Thieves. Let’s have this adventure together. An experience Mike says was surreal, but key to bringing more pirates to the seas, regardless of hardware. “We’ve broken down another barrier, and now you can have a crew made up of someone who plays on Windows, someone who plays on Steam, someone who plays on Xbox, someone who plays on PlayStation.”

A glimpse into the future of Sea of Thieves

Next March 20th, Sea of Thieves will turn 6 years old and will celebrate with a huge preview of everything that will arrive in 2024 in seasons 12, 13 and 14. Before that, we had a small preview of what’s to come, and there are several new features that will gladden the hearts of the most seasoned pirates.

“This year is all about Sea of Thieves as a sandbox, it’s all about enriching that broader gameplay experience,” Chapman commented. “This year is probably the most classic year for Sea of Thieves. It’s about ‘tools, not rules’. New weapons to choose from in the loadout that give you new tactical options, new choices to make. We haven’t added weapons since the launch of the game, we’re adding completely new tools that really change the session.

There’s also the return of one of Sea of Thieves’ most important and influential characters, as well as the promise of plenty of shenanigans between now and the end of the year. “Flameheart may appear as part of one of those seasons, but to cover a new kind of sandbox game that really mixes the seas,” Chapman said. “Towards the end of the year, we’ll be focusing on stealth and mischief, a great environment for a new set of tools that everyone will have access to. We’ve deliberately pushed the boundaries of the game to make it more engaging, more inviting, but fundamentally more satisfying for everyone.”