Season 20 and a Raid Voyage Experiment | Sea of Thieves Developer Update: April 15th 2026

0:06 Hey everyone.

0:07 In this month's update,

0:08 I'm going to hit some of the feedback we've seen following the Community Direct,

0:12 how we're bringing new items to the Outpost stores,

0:16 share an update on game health with a focus

0:20 on content creation and talk about an upcoming game health bash,

0:24 and then finish with an experiment we've got coming in Season 20.

0:29 So before we jump into anything else,

0:32 I just want to talk about our upcoming Season 20 that's arriving in June.

0:37 We saw a fair amount of confusion and even some further

0:41 speculation on the exact contents of Season 20 following the Community Direct.

0:47 And on reflection, I don't think we were clear enough about what the Season

0:52 specifically will contain and why we've made the decisions that we did here.

0:57 To be clear, Season 20 is all going to be about Custom Seas.

1:02 We've ditched the Act structure and the team are

1:05 focused on landing a great creative tool set at launch,

1:10 ensuring it's stable at scale and then switch

1:13 into listening mode and start working with your feedback.

1:17 Alongside Custom Seas, Season 20 will operate a live calendar of returning

1:23 Events like Last Ship Standing and Bilge Rats Weekenders,

1:26 while also introducing the evolved Season Pass we shared during the direct.

1:31 While I'd love to sit here and tease

1:34 that there's a surprise coming in the Showcase,

1:36 that's not our plan, and I want to be clear on why.

1:40 We've talked at length about how as a team we've spread ourselves way too thin,

1:45 tried to deliver too much too quickly, let storylines fade,

1:49 and failed to hit the mark- there you go,

1:53 I said it again- all while leaving behind

1:57 experiences deserving of improvement as we've moved on.

2:00 I stated earlier in the year that we're not going

2:03 to continue like this and that things were going to change,

2:07 and that starts here with Season 20.

2:09 This next season, we're focusing all our efforts as a team on landing a great

2:15 Custom Seas experience and delivering on that promise

2:18 of a tool set to unlock your creativity.

2:22 This, alongside the Live Events,

2:25 Season improvements and game health are a teamwide effort,

2:29 and our focus here is on landing a quality experience.

2:33 I know for a lot of you that's disappointing to hear,

2:36 but we're not going to continue making commitments we can't keep,

2:40 and we're not going to tease something only to not follow through.

2:44 That's why our Direct focused on the here and now.

2:48 But let me just be clear, the addition of new content into the sandbox is going

2:54 to remain a key part of how we operate Sea of Thieves,

2:58 and once we're through Custom Seas, we'll share more on the path ahead.

3:02 But for now, I wanted to just be clear

3:05 and honest about where we're focusing as a team.

3:08 And then before we move on, I want to be clear about something.

3:12 As Production Director on Sea of Thieves,

3:15 I am accountable for the production challenges

3:17 that we face and the decisions that follow.

3:20 The buck stops with me.

3:22 As part of the leadership team,

3:24 our job is to take responsibility when things aren't going well,

3:28 and to make difficult calls when they're needed

3:30 to get us heading in the right direction.

3:33 I feel it's important for both our players and the team here

3:37 at Rare to see us take responsibility when it's ours to own.

3:41 Right, let's move on.

3:43 Next, let's talk about cosmetics.

3:45 We shared during the Community Direct our intent to begin

3:50 addressing the imbalance between the Pirate Emporium and the Outpost stores,

3:55 but we didn't get into any specifics.

3:57 So, let's do that here.

3:59 April's update will be the end of our current run,

4:03 and deliver the Midnight Prowler weapons

4:05 and the final of our Resolute ship colors.

4:07 In May, we then have a clothing set arriving in the stores,

4:12 which brings together a few different

4:15 existing themes into one great looking set.

4:18 From June onward, we then switch into a new rhythm,

4:22 and the Outpost stores will receive new bespoke

4:25 items each month that are not just recolors.

4:28 The first new items arriving in the Outpost will be the new Silver Coin set,

4:34 a clearly silver-coloured set with a classic pirate design.

4:39 The clothing, weapons and equipment will arrive in the Outpost across Season 20,

4:44 while the ship items will arrive in the Black Market.

4:48 There's a lot of great changes being made here in the cosmetic

4:52 space over the next few months with the return of the Black Market,

4:56 the evolution of the Season Pass,

4:58 and now Outpost stores getting a more consistent rhythm of new items,

5:03 all providing players with new things

5:05 to reward their accomplishments on the seas.

5:08 On the game health side, back in March we had another big streamer set

5:13 sail on seas for the first time and, unfortunately, things didn't go well.

5:18 In response, we've kicked off work to improve and secure

5:22 parts of the experience to better protect our content creators.

5:26 Our existing in-game tools to help creators protect

5:31 their identity were spread through the settings menus,

5:35 these will now all be consolidated into one menu

5:38 and enabled more easily with a single button press.

5:42 While surfacing Gamertags within the front-end menu is a hard requirement,

5:46 we're going to explore ways we can

5:49 help players better hide their information here.

5:53 And then, behind the scenes,

5:55 we're investing time in further securing our servers and areas

5:59 where player information may be visible from outside the game.

6:02 We want to ensure that all players feel safe creating content while on the seas,

6:08 and improving the areas I've shared here

6:11 alongside our other ongoing work in anticheat

6:14 and game security will make a big difference

6:17 for future creators who set sail with us.

6:20 Next up, as the game health team have been

6:23 mostly tied up with landing our Hourglass improvements recently,

6:26 we felt it's time to do a bit of a game health bash.

6:31 The team will be investing time in tackling

6:34 a few key areas over the next few months.

6:37 Long-standing bugs like the mast bug,

6:40 merchant supplies, and disappearing resources.

6:43 Improvements to some frustrating commendations

6:45 like merchant cargo and miles sailed.

6:49 And then fixes to some common AI issues to both land and sea encounters,

6:55 and some tuning to Bone Caller skeletons.

6:59 There's some gnarly issues here.

7:01 So, no time scales on these fixes yet,

7:03 but we'll share more when these reach Insiders.

7:06 And then finally, I wanted to share

7:08 a little experiment we're going to be running.

7:11 Hold on.

7:12 There we go.

7:13 So, in recent videos, we've shared updates on the work we've been doing to make

7:19 our servers feel more alive by increasing player sightings on the seas.

7:24 We know that the introduction of diving has

7:28 fundamentally changed how crews play during their session.

7:32 And while there's positives to having experiences on demand,

7:36 it's also clear it's had an impact on the health of the sandbox.

7:41 We've also seen pretty consistent feedback about

7:44 how Raid Voyages often result in underwhelming rewards

7:48 for crews who contest them given players can't

7:51 see the type of encounter before they complete it.

7:55 So, in Season 20, we're going to be running an experiment:

7:59 when the Season launches,

8:01 all on-demand Raid voyages will be removed from the Quest Table.

8:06 This means that any World Event you see

8:08 on the horizon is guaranteed to be an emergent one,

8:12 and has the highest rewards on offer should you contest it.

8:16 Combined with this, all World Events during the Season

8:19 will have the chance to reward a Chest of Fortune,

8:23 making every Event worth your time.

8:25 Now, this is an experiment.

8:27 This might go great and we see World

8:30 Events light up again with crews fighting over them.

8:34 or we might see players miss

8:36 the on-demand experiences they've had at their fingertips.

8:39 Either way, we're going to learn a lot here,

8:41 and I feel confident that running experiments like

8:44 these in the live game will help us test out

8:48 different scenarios and get a clearer picture of where

8:51 we should commit to more permanent changes in the future.

8:55 At a broader level, the recent migration

8:58 improvements and now this experiment with Raid

9:01 Voyages are part of a deeper look into the health of the sandbox.

9:06 We're committed to improving the experience

9:08 and bringing the sandbox back to its best.

9:11 And if that means making bigger changes to get there,

9:14 we're prepared to make them.

9:17 Right, let's call it there.

9:19 Catch you all next time.