Sea Of Thieves is saying goodbye to its Arena PvP mode as part of the new update for the launch of the game’s Season 6. This is probably a result of the lack of players partaking in the game’s Arena mode, however, the official blog post explains the full reasoning behind the decision. Back in January, Sea Of Thieves Executive Producer Joe Neate discussed the closure of the Arena mode, explaining that focusing the team’s plan’s on the core gameplay of Adventure mode was more of a priority. However, he also acknowledged the lacklustre response of players to Arena mode, which was probably more of a contributing factor to the decision to give it the heave-ho completely. The team actually stopped active development on the Arena completely back in December 2020, and so it bids its final farewell to the game with the launch of Season 6.
As we’ve shared before, only 2% of our players’ time is spent in The Arena on a consistent basis, and this has never really changed. We recognise that some criticism we might receive here is that we didn’t invest enough in The Arena to give it the best chance of success alongside the continued growth of Adventure. The reality is that as a new platform, The Arena regretfully never became popular enough to justify focusing our creative efforts there, beyond our initial efforts to refine the experience to appeal to a broader audience.
Joe Neate, Executive Producer, Sea Of Thieves
Sea Of Thieves‘ players have marked the departure of Arena mode in-game by drinking, playing mournful tunes, sending plenty of sad emotes and even doing a sad-looking pirate conga. It’s not all doom and gloom for pirates who love a bit of PvP though. As Season 6 swings into gear over in Sea Of Thieves, players will have plenty of pirate pillaging and plundering to look forward to. There’ll be some major additions to the game in the brand new Season 6, including sea fortresses, new weapons, ship parts and cosmetic items.
Season 6 of Sea Of Thieves is now live.
