Sea of Thieves Tests Brigantines, Shrinks File Size
Sea of Thieves has a habit of talking openly about the stuff that doesn't work. That's rarer than it should be in live service gaming, and the latest developer vlog leans into it hard. Some experiments flopped, some got delayed, and one long-running problem is finally getting smaller. Quite literally.
Here's the rundown of what Rare's pirate sandbox has in the pipeline, and what got shelved along the way.
A Quick Word on Rare's New Bosses
The video opened with something everyone was probably wondering about. Microsoft has moved Rare Ltd. under Activision's control, and the team acknowledged the change only briefly. They thanked fans for their well-wishes and moved on. That's it. No roadmap shake-up, no grand statement about the future. Whether that's reassuring or not probably depends on how you feel about Activision.
Big Ship, Little Ship Goes Back in the Drydock
First on the agenda was the "big ship little ship" experiment. The idea was simple enough: put crews into servers where every vessel is the same size, then see how player behaviour changes. Sloop crews only sailing against sloops, galleons only meeting galleons, that sort of thing.
The verdict? Not yet. Further development of the feature has been pushed back. The devs were clear that the test still gave them useful data and player feedback, so it wasn't a waste of time. But anyone hoping for size-matched servers in the near future will have to keep waiting.
Last Ship Standing Can't Handle Six Galleons
The second experiment hit a harder wall. Rare wanted to try bigger ships in Last Ship Standing, the game's free-for-all mode where crews battle until only one vessel is left afloat. Six galleons with full crews in a single match turned out to be too much, and performance suffered.
The obvious fix would be fewer ships. Rare isn't going that route. Instead, the team wants to test brigantines, the mid-sized option that sits between sloops and galleons. That keeps the number of crews in a match intact while easing the load. There's a catch, though: the brigantine test has been delayed significantly because of problems with the PlayStation 5 version of the test build.
The File Size Diet Is Actually Working
Now for the good news. Sea of Thieves is a big install, and anyone who's ever cleared space on a console drive just to patch it knows the pain. Rare has been working on shrinking it, and this time the effort is paying off.
The targets are pretty ambitious. PC and Xbox players running 4K should see their install size at least cut in half. Everyone else - standard PC, Xbox, and PS5 players - is looking at a reduction of around 30 percent. For a game that keeps adding content, that's a meaningful chunk of storage clawed back.
Cheaters, Shanties, and Smarter Bundles
A few smaller items rounded out the vlog:
- Anti-cheat work: Rare is continuing its efforts to stop file mods that players use to cheat. It's an ongoing fight across online games, as the recent GTA Online hack arrest showed.
- Sea shanties for sale: Shanties are heading to the Pirate Emporium, the game's premium storefront.
- Fairer bundle pricing: Upcoming Emporium bundles will change their price if you already own one of the items inside. No more paying twice for the same cosmetic.
That last one sounds minor. It isn't. Bundle pricing that ignores what players already own is one of the more irritating habits of live service stores, and it's nice to see it addressed.
Our Take
The most interesting thing about this vlog is how much of it is about things not happening. Two gameplay experiments either stalled or got postponed, and Rare said so plainly. That kind of transparency tends to build goodwill with a community, even when the news itself is a bit of a letdown.
The file size work, meanwhile, is the change most players will actually feel. Storage is a constant headache on consoles, and a 30 percent cut for most players is a practical improvement rather than a flashy one.
The bigger question hanging over all of this is the move under Activision. Rare said almost nothing about it, which suggests either that day-to-day plans haven't changed or that the team simply isn't ready to talk. It is worth watching whether future vlogs keep this candid tone, and whether the Emporium starts behaving differently over time. For now, keep an eye on the brigantine test once the PS5 build is sorted - that's the next concrete thing to look out for.