Sea of Thieves is getting paid custom servers next year, and Rare are switching up their approach to seasons

Big piratey thing Sea of Thieves will be getting custom servers as part of a paid subscription service in "early 2026", developers Rare have announced during a first-ever community direct for the game. That's far from all of the studio's plans, with wider shakeups also in the pipeline.

This outlining of plans to make sure the good ship SOT is not only seaworthy, but can successfully broadside the many other vessels competing for its players' attention comes with some depressing and un-piratey context. It follows Rare being one of the studios affected by Microsoft's mass layoffs earlier this month, with Everwild being among the number of in-development games cancelled as part of the cuts.

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