Sea Of Thieves’ PvP Arena To Shut Down This March

gameinformer.com:

Rare has announced that it is shutting down its PvP Arena in Sea of Thieves. 

Revealed during the Sea of Thieves 2022 Preview Event, The Arena is officially coming to an end as it simply isn’t a mode played by most players. Rare says it was a tough decision to come to, but the right one for the future of the open-world pirate game. 

“Firstly, this was an extremely tough decision, but we firmly believe it’s the right one to allow us to focus on our plans for the central free-roaming Adventure mode,” Rare writes in a blog post. “Despite the efforts of a hugely talented team, The Arena unfortunately never met the goals we originally had for it – either in creating a genuine alternative way to play Sea of Thieves with a competitive spin, or a short session experience if you didn’t have the time to commit to an open-ended Adventure session.” 

The Arena will officially close at the start of Season Six, which is slated to begin on March 10, 2022. Those who have played in The Arena before and have reached or passed Sea Dogs rank 5 will receive the following ship cosmetics: 

Anyone who has reached Sea Dogs rank 50 will receive The Good Boy ship cosmetic as well. The cutoff point for these rewards has already passed so if you haven't already hit either of these ranks, you won’t be receiving the associated rewards.

Rare says that only 2 percent of its players’ time is spent in The Arena on a consistent basis and since the start of that mode, that hasn’t really changed. The studio also says it might understand criticism that it didn’t invest enough into The Arena to make it a worthwhile mode, but Rare says The Arena never became popular enough of a mode in Sea of Thieves for them to focus creative efforts there, so it didn’t. 

Devel