Hello, and welcome to this handy summary of March 2026’s Community Direct! The team sat down earlier this month to reflect on everything that’s happened since [url="https://www.seaofthieves.com/news/community-direct-july-2025"]the last Direct[/url], while also discussing the next few months of [i]Sea of Thieves[/i] plans. The Direct itself is a crisp 29 minutes long, but if you’d like a shorter summary of events, then you’re in luck – this companion article has it all. Let’s get into it.
[dynamiclink href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jk7ap_R2Ip8"][/dynamiclink]
Looking Back
When reflecting on our current rhythm of release, it’s clear to us that the signals we’ve had from our players show our current model isn’t working. Delivering bitesize content via our three-Act structure has put a lot of pressure on internal teams, while also still not delivering to our players’ expectations – so we recognise it’s something that needs to change.
However, there have been plenty of highlights when looking back over the last eight months: the NDA lift for the Insider Programme has gone well, and the scale of that feedback has helped us push valuable feedback through. A big highlight for us internally was also watching the first Last Ship Standing technical test in real time on Twitch – a feat previously impossible when the content was under NDA.
Of course, the last few months have also brought a suite of quality-of-life updates – with a range of improvements and bug fixes shipped, including increased FOV, improved weapon switching, cross-region matchmaking for Faction Battles, slimline banners, underwater combat improvements, stuck black screen loading and water desync. We’re still all in on game health, and we’re pleased with how these changes have been received so far.
We’ve discussed a lot of the above as it’s happened on the official [i]Sea of Thieves[/i] podcast – so for more on all of the above, please [url="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL51podOC3ZN3aVP0O9dYQV3FMgthMS8vM"]head over to YouTube[/url] to catch up. But for now, let’s look forward…
Cosmetics and Game Health
As discussed in the Direct, we have an ongoing commitment to game health and tackling players’ long-standing bugs. From Merchant supply problems through to hard-to-achieve Commendations, our Community team are working more closely than ever with the Guardians of Fortune – our Game Health team – to support, inform and prioritise how we go about tackling these issues.
We also covered the formation of the internal Toxicity strike force off the back of our survey results; we now have a cross-disciplinary crew working together to approach improving the player experience in a holistic, multi-pronged fashion. The output of this work will touch on many areas, whether it be matchmaking based, design based, enforcement based or beyond – including us being explicit on what’s legitimate gameplay and what’s not. [img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/37295600/6eade167e915b63070dbef06a3b9d3ccca175eeb.jpg"][/img][i] [/i]We also recognise that players have felt there’s been an imbalance of cosmetic supplies to Outpost stores, versus our rhythm of delivery to the Pirate Emporium. We’re changing that, with work underway to better supply the Outpost shops and Black Market with more items. We’re committed to making sure there’s a continual supply of cool stuff for people to spend their gold and Doubloons on, and we want to make this far less asymmetrical than it might’ve felt of late.
While we’re talking about gold: rest assured we heard the feedback on the Doubloon reset, and we are making a commitment now to not reset our players’ total gold earned. We will not touch your gold.
Changes to the Pirate Emporium
On the theme of cosmetics and the Pirate Emporium, we took the opportunity to discuss some upcoming changes coming to that area of the game.
The key change we’re making to the Emporium is stock rotation. With rotating stock, we can be more intentional about what we release and rotate. We also recognise that having a full catalogue of Emporium items to browse isn’t necessarily easy or fun to navigate, and makes it hard to see everything we have on sale. So this change allows us to streamline the experience and spotlight cool sets that a ton of folks are missing because they’re 50 pages deep into the UI.
This change might feel odd given how we’ve introduced stock since we first set up the Emporium in 2019 – but almost seven years in, we’re keen to evolve how we operate our premium store. Those changes will be arriving in April, and everything due to rotate out (for now) with April’s update is currently marked with a time-limited tag to give you a heads-up that it’s leaving soon.
Season 20
We’re thrilled to announce that Season 20’s headline feature will be Custom Seas, our previously discussed custom server toolset. However, the key thing to note from today’s announcement is that Custom Seas will [i]not[/i] be locked behind a subscription – it’ll be free to play for every [i]Sea of Thieves[/i] player.
While we were developing and testing the toolset, it became clear to us that locking the feature behind a subscription was potentially limiting its true potential. So, in the spirit of unleashing community creativity for all, we want [i]everyone[/i] to be able to play with it. Even with the limited set of Custom Seas tools in Insiders, players have still been having a whale of a time – and we’re so excited to see what kind of experiences and game modes you all start coming up with when it hits retail later this year.
With this plan, we can also ensure that Custom Seas is a platform for us to build upon. We’ll be listening carefully to feedback as the feature rolls out, so we know what kind of experiences players want from future iterations of the toolset. [img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/37295600/bfbec440f913601b68cd0fff18d5df9f386ff81e.jpg"][/img] As per the learnings and reflections of the past few months, Season 20 will not have a three-Act structure; however, it will have the most consistent and varied live Event calendar we’ve ever had, featuring a monthly Bilge Rats Weekender, monthly Last Ship Standing Event, and once-a-Season Community Weekend and Gold & Glory.
Finally, we’re changing the Season Pass – the 100 levels of free Seasonal rewards earned by raising your Renown – to be a much more meaningful player experience. This track will now only comprise 50 levels, and will give players more choice with the path they pick through their Seasonal rewards. Those who complete a Seasonal reward track under this new structure will receive a brand new high-value reward at the end – a star prize – which are super-shiny unique items that we hope players will find much more satisfying and meaningful.
One Last Thing
While we’re all super excited to see what our players can do with Custom Seas, there is one last announcement we snuck into the Community Direct. As of today, we officially have [url="https://www.seaofthieves.com/commercial-use-guidelines"]Limited Commercial Usage Guidelines[/url].
In the spirit of unleashing community creativity, we’re freeing up the makers among our player base to sell their creations within some distinct guidelines. This enables us to shout out some of these talented folks on our channels too – previously we’ve been shy in spotlighting makers with Etsy stores and the like, but in addition to giving our players confidence to sell, these guidelines also give us the confidence to showcase and celebrate a range of stunning [i]Sea of Thieves[/i]-inspired wares.
You can check out the guidelines [url="https://www.seaofthieves.com/commercial-use-guidelines"]here[/url].
That’s everything, but join us again in July for our next Community Direct, which will once more be a veritable feast for [i]Sea of Thieves[/i] fans. Thanks for tuning in, and we’ll see you on the seas!
