Sea of Thieves is adding private single-crew servers in December

eurogamer.net:

Five and a half years and endless requests from the community later, Rare has announced it'll finally be adding private servers to Sea of Thieves — meaning a single crew of up to four players can explore the world without fear of PvP encounters — starting this December, as part of the multiplayer pirate adventure's Season 10.

Season 10 itself gets underway on 19th October, and will introduce a major new feature each month ahead of 2024 — essentially meaning all content originally planned for 2023 will arrive before the end of the year, despite a painfully protracted, seven-month-long Season 9.

First up, on 19th October, Sea of Thieves will introduce Guilds, described as a «new way for players to form meaningful bonds beyond their immediate crew». Essentially, any player that's reached Captain status and has their own ship can start a guild — picking a name, logo, and emblem when then do so — which can then support up to 24 invited players.

All captains in the guild can pledge their ships for use by members while they're offline, meaning everyone in the guild can admire their tasteful ship decor and help progress that vessel's Captaincy milestones, even when the owner is away in the real-world.

Additionally, as guild members adventure in Sea of Thieves, they'll be able to help progress a new Guild reputation track — which unlocks unique rewards for all members and a special Distinction every 100 levels bringing further rewards. Is another passive progression track the answer to livening up Sea of Thieves somewhat stale sandbox? Probably not, but Guilds should at least help larger groups of friends unable to all play on the same server feel a bit more connected in-game, if nothing else.

Things get considerably more