Barely has the curtain closed on Sea of Thieves’ latest swashbuckling narrative escapade, Heart of Fire, than Rare is back with news of its multiplayer pirate adventure’s next big monthly update, which is set to usher in sweeping changes for the game’s PvP-focussed Arena mode. There’s also word of its second anniversary celebrations, which start this weekend.
The big news from Rare’s latest developer video update undoubtedly comes in the form of April’s significant Arena mode overhaul, said to mark the start of its “next chapter”.
As of April’s update, all treasure maps (and all but one cashing-in ship) will be removed from the Arena, with every player now being directed toward a single buried treasure highlighted by a large glowing beacon. Matches will be shorter, reduced from 24 minutes to 15 minutes, arenas will be smaller, and silver rewards for ship-to-ship battling will rise.
Arena Adjustments and Anniversary Antics: Sea of Thieves News March 18th 2020 Watch on YouTube
Rare says these changes are designed to encourage “condensed, fluid gameplay”, with the aim presumably being to funnel all participants together for massive inter-team pile-ons of ceaseless cannon fire and onboard battling.
Based on these early details, it sounds like Arena mode will lose a lot of its more nuanced strategy – the original version permits a surprisingly wide variety of offensive and defensive playstyles in the quest to be crowned PvP champion – which will be a shame if true. Hopefully, though, the overhauled version will prove enjoyable enough to mitigate that loss.