Sea of Thieves crews say season 9 is "severely lacking," but it's a game changer for solo players

gamesradar.com:

Sea of Thieves season 9 has drawn some criticism for being relatively light on new content, but it sounds like a massive upgrade for solo players.

In a deep dive video shared to Rare's YouTube channel, Sea of Thieves lead designer Andrew Preston breaks down the forthcoming season 9 into two categories: "changes to the sandbox" and "quality of life" updates. If that sounds a little dull for one of the game's four yearly updates, lead designer Shelley Preston jazzes up the new season succinctly:

"In season 9, players will experience a refreshed, revitalized sandbox experience of that quintessential Sea of Thieves gameplay, with a ton of opportunities on the horizon and a bunch of quality of life changes."

OK, so it's a filler season, right? Well, looking at the season's highlights – the new Chests of Fortune and accompanying cosmetics, Skulls of Destiny, and balance changes to world events – season 9 looks fairly light compared to, say, season 7, which gave us the option to buy our own ships. And yet, despite many in the community calling the new season "underwhelming," (opens in new tab) "severely lacking," (opens in new tab) and "on par with some of the monthly updates," as a mostly solo player I couldn't be more excited.

Those aforementioned balancing updates will make some of Sea of Thieves' best content solo-able at long last - specifically, world events will now "scale for the amount of players who are nearby and taking part." Moreover, the Ashen Lord and Fort of Fortune world events have been rebalanced to make them easier for smaller crews. 

For me, and for the underserved community of Sea of Thieves solo-sloopers, season 9 means these world events will be feasible for the first time as a single player, just like