Rare is holding a Sea of Thieves community day on January 30th and the team is outlining the 2022 roadmap and plans for the game ahead of the event. Some of the changes include a focus on world building, an end to the Arena, a new series of narrative content called Adventures and Mysteries in addition to the regular season events, and more.
According to the team's update, “one of our main goals for 2022 is to flesh out our pirate world and make it feel more dynamic. Stories, whether they are the ones we tell or those that are players create themselves, or at the very heart of Sea of Thieves”.
Sea of Thieves will continue seeing seasons at the regular pace. Adventures are time limited but they’ll last for at least two weeks to set up the story and give the community a chance to move it along. The first Adventure will hit on February 17th and it’s called Shrouded Islands. Season six is expected in March. Mysteries will let you solve riddles and uncover treasure and secrets both inside the game and out in order to serve a larger narrative. Mysteries will stay around longer than Adventures.
Some of the focus of the game will be new content in the second half of season six including a Legend exclusive voyage, which will include challenges that change every time you set sail and explore.
One of the other major changes is the closure of The Arena. The Arena never reached the goals the team had and devoting resources to it while trying to create adventures ultimately wasn’t worth it. Even though participation never rose above a consistent level of 2% of the player base at any time, and active development stopped in December 2020, Rare still maintained it, but the time comes to move forward. The Arena will formally shut down at the beginning of season six on March 10, 2022.
For more on the decision to close the Arena, see this post. For more on the 2022 roadmap, you can visit Sea of Thieves.
