Sea Of Thieves’ PvP Arena To Shut Down This March

Rare has revealed that its PvP Arena is closing in Sea of Thieves. 

Revealed during the Sea of Thieves 2022 Preview Event, The Arena is officially coming to an end as it simply isn’t a mode played by most players. Rare admits it was hard but necessary for the success of this open-world pirate game. 

“Firstly, this was an extremely tough decision, but we firmly believe it’s the right one to allow us to focus on our plans for the central free-roaming Adventure mode,” Rare writes in a blog post. “Despite the efforts of a hugely talented team, The Arena unfortunately never met the goals we originally had for it – either in creating a genuine alternative way to play Sea of Thieves with a competitive spin, or a short session experience if you didn’t have the time to commit to an open-ended Adventure session.” 

Season Six is scheduled to start on March 10th 2022. Anyone who has played before in The Arena and achieved or failed to reach the finals of the season. Ranking 5 for Sea DogsThese ship cosmetics are yours 

• The Azure Scout 
• Flaming Jackal
• The Golden Chaser
• Lucky Rover
• The Regal Hound

Everyone who has achieved Ranking 50 for Sea DogsReceive Good Boy cosmeticsAlso, The cutoff point for these rewards has already passed so if you haven’t already hit either of these ranks, you won’t be receiving the associated rewards.

Rare says that only 2 percent of its players’ time is spent in The Arena on a consistent basis and since the start of that mode, that hasn’t really changed. The studio also says it might understand criticism that it didn’t invest enough into The Arena to make it a worthwhile mode, but Rare says The Arena never became popular enough of a mode in Sea of Thieves for them to focus creative efforts there, so it didn’t. 

“While we’re incredibly proud of where the game is now and the decisions we’ve made since launch back in 2018, we look back at The Arena with pride mixed with regret that we didn’t manage to reach the wider audience that would have allowed us to keep building upon its foundations. The Arena was launched and developed a lot of lessons. But one thing really stood out to us is the fact that it requires much more creative effort and a larger investment than we anticipated.

Despite sharing a lot of the same mechanics as Adventure, it is an entirely different experience, and one that would have required a huge amount of mindshare and development effort to stand alongside it – and given the disparity of audience sizes, it just became impossible to justify.” 

Development on Sea of Thieves’ Arena actually halted in December of 2020, something Rare announced at the time. However, in updating Adventure mechanics and adding quality of life improvements, the team has to bring those things over to the Arena mode, too, which presented a workload that wasn’t worth it. 

“As a result, The Arena has required considerable development work just to keep it functioning in its base state, and would continue to represent a significant ongoing workload for us – which is ultimately what leads us to the decision we’ve shared with you today.

It is understandable that the decision will disappoint our loyal, dedicated Arena-focused community. To everyone who played or supported The Arena from beginners to veterans, and those who helped to build communities such as The Notorious Arena League, and Sea of Champions, thank you. It was truly amazing to witness the level of skill of many of the players that sprung up around The Arena. And how it played out in the same spirit we love: fairness, respect and mutual admiration. You are a wonderful and creative community and we’d love to work with you on moving forward in a world without The Arena.” 

Check out the thoughts of our team on Sea of Thieves. Game Informer’s Sea of Thieves review and then read about why it’s on Game Informer’sCheck out this list to see the 10 best co-op games right now. After that, read about the A Pirate’s Life expansion that brought Jack Sparrow, Davy Jones, and more into Sea of Thieves. 

Did you like The Arena in Sea of Thieves as a player? We’d love to hear from you in the comments!