As someone who ordinarily only tolerates Sea of Thieves’ PvP side, rather than proactively engages in it (although, to be clear, I send you to Davy Jones’ Locker if you try and mess with my sloop), I was a little apprehensive when Rare first announced that its multiplayer pirate extravaganza would be getting a new competitive-focussed standalone mode.
From April 30th onward, when Sea of Thieves’ Anniversary Update arrives, the existing game (now retitled Adventure Mode, and massively expanded with new rip-roaring, story-focussed campaign missions) will be joined by the new combative Arena Mode. The latter, I had previously assumed, would surely be the domain of bloodthirsty reprobates and toxic trolls, not friendly, carefree sailing-folk like me. Yeah, I might have been wrong about that.
Based on the handful of matches I managed to play at a recent Sea of Thieves press event, Arena Mode is good fun. It offers exactly 24-minutes of swashbuckling carnage per game as five crews of four battle it out, galleon-to-galleon, on a truncated version of the familiar Adventure Mode map, frantically outmanoeuvring each other to accrue the most coins.
Official Sea of Thieves Anniversary Update Announce Trailer Watch on YouTube
Superficially at least, Arena Mode is designed as one big treasure hunt. At the start of a game (once you’ve been whisked away from the gorgeously designed social hub, where all players assemble pre-match for casual banter and innocently saucy hot tub fun), every team is handed a clutch of identical maps. Or sometimes just the one.