I guess Sea of Thieves is a pirate sim all about amassing treasure, griefing, and getting griefed, but I've always treated it like a hangout tool where I can play the hurdy-gurdy, get smashed, and stumble into a shark's mouth. As was announced at today's Xbox Games Showcase, developer Rare is catering to those sorts of casual sensibilities with a suite of new tools that might call to mind Fortnite, Warcraft 3, or even Roblox.
A new trailer announced "Custom Seas," a free update which lets players make their own modes, spawn in objects, and more. Examples of modes made in the new creator included Rowboat Royale, a cannoneering deathmatch mode played on the back of small rowboats, and Skeleton Snipe Hunt, a competitive sharpshooting minigame. It's hard to say how in-depth the tools will be, but it sounds like an interesting way to inject more gaminess into the decidedly freeform nautical sandbox.
The trailer also noted you can make a dedicated space to "hang out," presumably free from the dangers of monster attacks and PvP, though it's hard to say how different that will feel from the Safer Seas update which already provided a PvE-only mode. If nothing else, this continues a trend of Rare adding more and more customizability to the game—that's very in right now!
To that end, this update will also bring what sounds like a suite of machinima creation features. Inviting players to "create a cinematic masterpiece," the trailer showed some snippets of "new camera tools" which seemed ripe for making home movies on the high seas.
If this all intrigues you, you won't be waiting long; custom seas are slated to release June 18.
