Sea of Thieves is getting a paid subscription for custom servers

Topher

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Rare has announced that Sea of Thieves will be getting custom servers early next year, which can be accessed via a new premium subscription.


Sea of Thieves is finally getting custom servers! As confirmed by Rare in a new Community Direct, custom servers will be coming to the high seas as part of a new subscription for the game in early 2026.

  • Here are the Sea of Thieves achievements
  • Custom servers will set sail for Sea of Thieves in 2026 and will require a premium subscription
  • Rare will also be delivering seasonal content to the high seas slightly differently going forward
Rare's inaugural Sea of Thieves Community Direct was packed with information for die-hard fans about the Xbox multiplayer game. The most notable announcement from the Direct, however, was the confirmation of a "much-requested community feature" that the developer has been working on behind the scenes for some time: custom servers.

Sea of Thieves is getting a paid subscription for custom servers video
Rare says that with custom servers, players will have their own private sandbox where they can use "switches, toggles, and commands to curate the server experience." This includes things such as "spawning enemies and loot on command, turning off AI enemies, and ensuring that the environment is fit for whatever shenanigans they want to set up."

On top of this, players will also be able to run Safer Seas Fleets, which allows them to fill a server full of their friends while earning rewards at the same rate as the solo version of Safer Seas. It's unclear if you'll still be able to unlock some of the already limited achievements in Safer Seas Fleets. What's more, custom servers will also offer players a cinematic camera that offers players "a toolset similar to that used by our very own video team when they're putting together those beautiful gameplay trailers."

Custom servers will be locked behind a paid subscription service, which is scheduled to launch in early 2026. Rare hasn't said how much the subscription will cost.

Elsewhere in the Community Direct, Rare explained it's making changes internally to put a greater focus on the game's overall health to ensure the team "continues improving the core playability and stability of the main game, alongside introducing new experiences."

Rare is also changing how seasonal content is delivered across a season's three-month period. Instead of releasing all content at the beginning of the first month, the developer will release it in stages, so players will always have something to look forward to throughout the season.


The first month of a season will include new sandbox features and worldbuilding setup, the second will feature a headline live event that's expanded with lore elements, and the third month will have a "call to action moment" for players to revisit and revitalise sandbox content.




In addition, Rare is also lifting the NDA on the Sea of Thieves Insider program in hopes of "inspiring more conversation at scale about what we're up to and how we can improve the experience."
 
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I could never get into this game as many times as I've tried but good for the people that want it.
It was an amazing game, bust mostly for world PVP. Coming up and sinking a ship full of kids while they were doing a mission, or tucking on a ship for 30 minutes waiting for the perfect time to strike, was incredibly unique.

However, the game is 8 years old… time to move on.
 
I could never get into this game as many times as I've tried but good for the people that want it.
I was into it for about a month with friends playing a few times a week.

Even all these years later it's so shallow and basic. The combat is awful, ship combat is a joke with how broken certain mechanics are (good luck having a straight up ship to ship fight when players will spam explosive barrels and drop your anchor). The fact that ALL the content is simply earned by grinding gold quickly becomes boring.

Great water physics, and some interesting ideas, but that's about it.
 
To make this game pop they really need to fix it so you can have more than 4 people in a party. Artificially limiting party size in one of these types of games needlessly limits your audience.
 
This game can be beautiful at times, amazing water simulation, but unfortunately I don't have enough friends willing to play the game with me, and alone with random people I was frustrated then I drop it. Solid game, but I need a crew.
 
This game can be beautiful at times, amazing water simulation, but unfortunately I don't have enough friends willing to play the game with me, and alone with random people I was frustrated then I drop it. Solid game, but I need a crew.

Yeah I remember being in the betas and the water always stood out, looked great especially during sunset.

I can't stand the character models/style, awful imo
 
More anti consumer bs. There are still plenty of games that allow you to host private or public game servers for free. Dont support this and make devs think they can charge more money on top of people already paying to buy the game AND pay to play online.

Maybe it has a connection or maybe not, but we're seeing more signs that Microsoft will do everything they can to get that money back they spent on Bethesda and Activiion.
 
Have they fixed safer seas so you get full rewards yet? Picked the game up on PS5 when it released over there to play with my daughter but sucked that you only got limited rewards. She's not old enough to be any good at PvP stuff but we enjoy just sailing around doing missions and random other stuff without interruption.
 
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