Rare design director Mike Chapman comments on the possibility of Sea of Thieves implementing a Battle Royale mode, noting that Rare is always open to trying new things.
Rare has turned the successful launch of Sea of Thieves into an active post-launch, releasing its first major content update The Hungering Deep and starting up its biweekly Bilge Rat Adventures. But Rare’s eyes are already looking forward, both towards the five content updates remaining in 2018 and beyond.
In an interview with Game Informer, Rare design director Mike Chapman was asked directly about whether Sea of Thieves could feature a Battle Royale mode. The idea is great on paper since Sea of Thieves‘ mixture of land and sea looting and PvP lends itself very well to competition and survival. But Rare has never been a studio to follow in another’s footsteps.
Chapman’s response starts noncommittally, but constructively. He describes how Rare’s structure – four individual teams each working on different updates – enables the company to release content into Sea of Thieves routinely. He goes on to mention how there are already five more content updates planned for 2018, implying that there’s no room for divergence this year. 2019, however, is another matter entirely.
After providing context regarding the ongoing development of Sea of Thieves, Chapman further elaborated on the idea of a Battle Royale in Sea of Thieves. He starts by providing an example of how Rare’s priority is to make sure everything put into Sea of Thieves is made with a unique Rare outlook:
“I think there are so many examples of content in the game where we’re like, we always talk about the death mechanics and we turned it into the ghost ship. We put a Sea of Thieves spin on a familiar mechanic with new and interesting takes. We see the battle royale thing, but I think there will be opportunities to do that kind of thing differently. It’s interesting where you can take PvP in the game, but we’d want to put a unique Sea of Thieves spin on it and do something completely surprising.”
The conclusion Chapman ultimately reaches is that he and the team at Rare are proud of what Sea of Thieves is and the reasons that it’s successful. Rare’s plan for the future is to build on that success, not try to create and different sort of success. Yet a major part of Sea of Thieves‘ success is listening to its community, so if the players are saying that Battle Royale-inspired content would be incredible in Sea of Thieves then maybe it’s worth considering. But Rare has no plans to simply recreate a Battle Royale mode using Sea of Thieves mechanics for the time being.
For now, players can look forward to seeing just what Rare has planned for Sea of Thieves through the multiple content releases remaining in 2018. And if a competitive multiplayer mode like a Battle Royale is something Sea of Thieves fans really want to see, then keep asking. Rare’s clearly interested in what fans are interested in seeing come next.
Sea of Thieves is available now on PC and Xbox One.
