The big Rare has just dropped a very colossal Dev Update for Sea of Thieves, and the players are losing their minds over the changes coming to the high seas. I mean, Less weapon switching time, the long-awaited 110 FOV slider, and lastly, some much-needed confirmatory info on the unban wave that was promised for earlier this year. These types of updates really matter, whereas this amounts to something else for the pirates to wear on their heads.
Now, the big one was weapon swap changes. Is weapon swapping from the Pistols, Blunderbuss, or Eye of Reach feeling a little clunky at the moment? It’s going to undergo some heavy smoothing. They will reduce the animation times and, in addition, put in some safeguards so that it feels consistent. Then user BulgLad responded to this, “I think that’ll probably make quickswapping more accessible to all players, rather than just those sweats that really managed to master animation canceling?” Then you also have Captain Logun saying he worries time-to-kill will be too fast. The debate goes full circle.
Then you have that FOV slider. 110-degree FOV. Finally. Console players have always been begging for it, and here it finally is. It’s gonna do wonders to solve motion sickness and just give players more visibility of their environment. I mean, it does beg the question as to why it took so long. But hey, better late than never, I guess?
Another huge thing is the unban wave. At the start of this year, Rare switched up their enforcement policy and promised to look into a lot of old bans. And we can confirm that it is indeed in motion, though this has not pleased everyone-HartlessGames replied that they are still falsely accused and not getting unbanned. So, mixed reactions into it.
It’s been so typical of SoT to see such an array of community reactions. Some players are downright hyping it-up, with ToxieSinclaire even saying, “I COULD KISS U,” and honestly, it’s a fitting reaction. Then, you have the likes of Milkynecro saying there’s been no heavy content update for casual players. Right after that, TAK entered arguing saying it’s felt forever since anything meaningful was added in if you’re not a hardcore player.
There was also that smaller conversation about Server Tick Rate. DougSluggins asked if there were any plans to increase it from the current 28 Hz, which is… not great. All these lost inputs, guns not firing, and general jankity could be sorted out by a proper tick rate. But nothing yet came out.
Then come the wild asks: Mama Mercy requesting PvE-only mode, which, let’s be honest, is the least likely thing ever to happen; Kristofer K demanding a third-person mode and AI ship battles. It’s like, the game is seven years old, my dude, it’s not like they’re rebuilding it from the ground up.
Some love even went to the trinket system; Ajora celebrated the return of the “trinket chads.” But, of course, Milkynecro just had to chime in about the lack of cool ship sets this season, saying, “I don’t care about trinkets.” You just can’t win.
What is interesting is how divided the community is over whether quality-of-life updates like this are bigger deals than new content. Kittenspreee quoted, “QOL > content” and, “I’ll die on that hill,” which, honestly? Same. I’d rather have a smoother experience than a new hat that I’ll wear once.
Then the timing of these changes comes up for debate. xB0NAx said it felt “too late for this kind of changes,” but they are welcome anyway. Fair enough. The game’s been out for ages now, and some of these issues have been complaints for years.
All in all, this seems to be a net-positive update. Weapon swapping that is faster will further make the combat feel smooth, and the FOV slider is another introduction long overdue. Reviewing those old bans is a move in the right direction. Rare is genuinely listening to what the community has to say, even if it did take them a while to get here.
Now, the question is: When will these hit the live servers? Kittenspreee asked how fast the turnaround would be, wondering if it required a whole lot of insider testing or would be quicker than the FOV implementation. No news yet, but I hope for soon.
Sea of Thieves has always had this really weird balance between casual pirate fantasy and competitive naval combat. Update like this that improves the core gameplay makes sure people stick around during content droughts. It isn’t about a landing new island or enemy every time; sometimes just making things that are already here feel good enough.
And let’s be honest-anything removing the jankiness in this game is a win. Weapon swapping felt awkward since day one-if they fix it, then some players who walked away due to frustrated combat would come back. Mix that up with better FOVs and fair-ban policies, and we’re cooking for a healthy recipe for the game.
At the very end of everything, Sea of Thieves is one of the most custom games out there. Sailing the seas with your crew and going on random adventures is something that will never get old. Smoothening and further enriching that experience is always good, even if it’s just QoL upgrades instead of glitzy attitude.
Yeah, good update, Rare. Keep ’em coming. Maybe next we can move onto that tick rate?
