Sea of Thieves wants you to get all emotional with new Adventures and Mysteries

Sea of Thieves isꦬ š“ƒ²getting a pair of massive new features that'll change the way we play the game in 2022: Adventures and Mysteries. 

Rare provided a ton of details ošŸ„‚n Sea of Thieves' plans for 2022 as well as a a sneak preview of season 6 in an extensive .

Adventures are cinematic, story-driven live-events that'll take place monthly and last for about two weeks each. Each adventure can be thought of as a chapter in an overarching story, with each season hosting a "Special Adventure" to bring the various threads to a conclusion before changing gears in the nešŸƒxt season. Director Mike Chapman says thatꦺ the way the community reacts to the Adventures and the choices they make will alter the outcome of the story and change the game world forever.

These story events are apparently designed to create more of an emotional connecti♉on between players and the NPCs sailing around the world. "We want to appeal tź§‘o players' hearts, get them to care about these places, get them to care about these characters," said senior designer Chris Davies.

Sea of Thieves

(Image credit: Rare)

Mysteries, on the othš“ƒ²er hand, are stories players will have to work together to uncover, with šŸŽƒclues presenting themselves both "in-game and out of game," according to executive producer Joe Neate. Mysteries will unfold throughout longer intervals than Adventures as Rare reacts to how efficiently players are solving them. So basically, it sounds like if we fumble around like drunken pirates, it'll take longer for Mysteries to unravel, but if we're smart about it they might play out a little quicker.

Davies says Rare was inspired by murderšŸ…˜ mysteries, ghost stories, and whodunnits across movies, TV, and books as it was designing Sea of Thieves' Mysteries. In fact, the first one will task players with solving the murder of a well-known Sea of Thieves character.

Adventures and Mysteries will collectively form the ongoing story told throughout Sea of Thieves seasons going forward, fundamentally alteri⛄ng the way new cš’ƒontent is released and played. The first Adventure, Shrouded Islands, is scheduled to go live on February 17.

Sea of Thieves

(Image credit: Rare)

We also got a sneak preview of Sea of Thieves season 6 and itšŸ’«s headlining new feature: Sea Forts. When the feature goes live, you'll be able to pillage and plunder six Sea Forts across the seas, but you'd best come prepared, as each one is guarded by phantoms and crawling with ghosts. These aren't just random dungeons either; they're tied in with the first set of Adventures and the narrative at large, so they'll be worth doing for more than just the loot.

Finally, Rare announced today that it's finally doing away with the beleaguered Arena mode, which it says is just more trouble than it's worth. For some possible context, Rare pulled voice chat between enemy crewā™šs in Arena laš’ƒst year due to toxicity

"With the scopšŸ’œe of Sea of Thieves growing larger and larger, the huge task of maintaining QA and bug fixes for both Adventure and Arena modes has become something we can no longer justify," reads a accompanying today's preview event. "We’re proud of what we achieved with Arena, but ultimately it wasn’t as successful as we had hoped, and a bespoke competitive mode with fewš’…Œ dedicated players is hard to align with our future vision for Sea of Thieves."

For everything just over the horizon, check out our guide to 澳擲幸运5å¼€å„–å·ē åŽ†å²ęŸ„čÆ¢:upcoming Xbox Series X games.

After earning an English degree from ASU, I worked as a corporate copy editor while freelancing for places like SFX Magazine, Screen Rant, Game Revolutą± ion, and MMORPG on the side. I got my big break here in 2019 with a freelance news gig, and I was hired on as Gamā™ˆesRadar's west coast Staff Writer in 2021. That means I'm responsible for managing the site's western regional executive branch, AKA my home office, and writing about whatever horror game I'm too afraid to finish.