Sea of Thieves will see its 'biggest year yet' in 2021

Sea of Thieves executive producer Joe Neate has promised 2021 will be the "biggest year yet" for the treasure hoarding pirate sim, which as of July boasted 15 million players. Neate made the claim on Twitter, in concert with a new November dev update for the game, which proclaims roughly the same thing.

While the update falls short of any specifics, it does indicate that next year's changes and additions will be substantial. "we’re hard at work behind the scenes on some significant changes that will lead us into 2021, with plans in motion for how we continue supporting the game and some major news still to come," Neate wrote. "Sea of Thieves isn’t slowing down any time soon."

The promise coincides with a modest November content update, which focuses mostly on fixes and user experience improvements. Because of Rare's ambitious future plans, not to mention changes to workflow thanks to the pandemic, the studio has had to "slightly rethink our end-of-year updates to lay some groundwork and allow us to focus on things beyond the immediate future."

As for what you can expect in-game this month: the Pirate Emporium has been restocked, Challenges and Voyages associated with the Fate of the Damned update will remain until December 9, and the Vault of the Ancients update has had ongoing additions since September.

2020 has been a good year for Sea of Thieves. In addition to the aforementioned player record, the game now has dogs. Which is good.