In a fittingly named video series called the ‘Inn-side story’ the team behind Microsoft’s biggest new IP of the generation, Sea of Thieves, has revealed some smaller and bigger changes coming to the Arena mode. It’s time for sloops, ranked matches and more things to earn.
An Inn-Side story
Rare has been excellent with communicating with their player base these last couple of years. With many community focused video’s, honest development diaries and presence at many events. It has been a new journey for the studio, formerly known for their secrecy, in becoming a team capable of running a live service game such as Sea of Thieves.
In this Inn-Side Story video the games executive producer Joe Neate, lead designer Shelley Preston and Rare’s video community manager John McFarlane talk about new things coming to the Arena mode in the game.
The last couple of months since the release of the Arena mode in April this year, the Arena mode has both been an excellent new way to play the game, as a frustrating experience. Teams not filling up, pre-set crews of four people completely hammering the other crews, mostly consisting of four random players put together and a lack of quality of life features expected from a 2019 competitive multiplayer title.
It seems Rare has acknowledged the faults in their new mode and are set to fix most of them. In this video Neate and Preston speak about the changes coming to the mode. These include
- A mode with sloops (One or two player ships)
- Experience based matchmaking
- Extra support for streamers, such as mute options and random player names
- Penalty for quitters
- Implementing systems to keep the mode engaging for everyone, even if you are not the winning team
- Structured rewards to ensure people come back to the game mode
The changes proposed in this video could steer the new mode in the right direction. As with everything, a decent execution will be vital.
The future is still bright for Sea of Thieves
The past weeks have shown how the Arena in Sea of Thieves can really shine. During the Battle for Orlando at GuardianCon and especially during the Twitch Rivals event players could see how engaging and competitive the mode can be when played with full teams on a somewhat level playing field.
Let’s hope Rare knows how to capture this feeling of a fantastic multiplayer experience for everyone. For every skill level, for every region and no matter how many friends you have.
