Sea of Thieves’ next adventure lets pirates choose the fate of Golden Sands

polygon.com:

When developer Rare introduced Adventures to pirate sandbox game Sea of Thieves, they chose to start things off with a bang. The very first Adventure saw a longtime safe harbor, full of familiar NPCs, cursed and its people kidnapped by the treacherous Lord Flameheart. In subsequent Adventures, players banded together to save the innocents and fight back against Flameheart and his dreadful Spanish fleet.

Now, pirates upon the Sea of Thieves have a choice to make — should they work together to repair the cursed Golden Sands Outpost? Or should they indulge in the “loot and plunder” philosophy of pirating, and join the Reapers in stopping the reconstruction effort?

The fate of Golden Sands is in your hands... Secure supplies to help rebuild? Or answer the summons to ensure it remains in ruins? Set sail and contribute to this community decision in the next Sea of Thieves Adventure, 'Lost Sands', from May 26th to June 9th. pic.twitter.com/N53XjOQMI9

This is the first Adventure where players will be directly pitted against one another. The stakes are quite high — the fate of Golden Sands Outpost, one of the safe places in the Seas of Plenty where pirates can sell their loot to vendors and relax a little bit. Rare will track participation and see which side ends up being more popular, which will determine how Golden Sands appears from here on out. This will likely impact future Adventures, too, where players are given a hand in setting the lore of Sea of Thieves.

The Lost Sands Adventure serves as a bit of a litmus test for players. Do they enjoy wholesome activities, like working together with other ships and delivering supplies? Or do they prefer the chaos of hunting down other pirate ships and reveling in their destruction?