Sea of Thieves' fifth anniversary update a 'reinvigorating' quality of life bonanza

Sea of Thieves is – can you believe it? – five years old this month, and to celebrate its half-decade anniversary, developer Rare is ushering in a new quality-of-life-focused season all about reinvigorating the piratical multiplayer adventure’s core sandbox.

Sea of Thieves’ Season 9 – which launches next Thursday, 16th March, just ahead of the game’s 20th March anniversary – is somewhat unusual in that it isn’t really built around one single flagship new feature. Instead, it’s tweaking, finessing, and refreshing the game as a whole in a bid to create a more coherent, enjoyable experience after five years of disparate updates.

For starters, come the new update, all World Events – from ship battles to Ashen Lords – will dynamically scale to match different crew sizes. Additionally, emergent event – the kraken, megaladon, fog, and ship wrecks – have been adjusted to make them a more common occurrence after having all become increasingly seldom seen as updates have continued.