Sea of Thieves players say farewell to the arena, as Season 6 makes it walk the plank
With arena being phased out of Sea of Thieves, players are pouring out a shot of rum for the ill fated PvP mode
With the launch of Sea of Thieves season six, a bunch of new features are being added to get players back on the ocean and scouring the deep waters for treasure. However, with these new additions comes a devastating loss, as the arena mode has gotten axed with this major update.
To commemorate the death of Sea of Thieves’ ill fated PvP mode, players gathered in game to send arenas off in typical Sea of Thieves fashion. This included playing music, walking in a sad conga line, and spamming the weeping emote. Some also started drinking, as is the norm at any good pirate wake.
On a video posted to the Sea of Thieves reddit, user ChaoticVic shows a large number of like minded pioneers walking around the arena lobby in a celebration of the late great PvP activity. Comments below the video are filled with players who’re recounting their time with the mode, waving goodbye to the arena and leaving anecdotes of their time playing it.
User Piotreck9t wrote “I also played a last match which ended 3 minutes before season 5 ended. I expected it to be full of sweats but there was only one other ship in the galleon arena and that guy was solo, so yeah, if that's the state of [the] arena minutes before its end, maybe it's better that Rare put it down. Will definitely miss it tho, now it's back to hunting reaper runners”
It’s true that the arena has been suffering from a lack of players for a while now. In the official blog post announcing the removal, executive producer Joe Neate wrote “As we’ve shared before, only 2% of our players’ time is spent in The Arena on a consistent basis, and this has never really changed.
We recognise that some criticism we might receive here is that we didn’t invest enough in The Arena to give it the best chance of success alongside the continued growth of Adventure. The reality is that as a new platform, The Arena regretfully never became popular enough to justify focusing our creative efforts there, beyond our initial efforts to refine the experience to appeal to a broader audience.”
What this means, as the player base sails blissfully into season six, is that arena PvP heads will have to focus their efforts into pillaging and plundering on the open seas. So here’s to you, arena. You were alright, if a little janky.
For the full picture on what has been added with season six of Sea of Thieves, check out our article on the season six promotional video that was released a few days ago. We’ve also got a great feature on the Sea of Thieves identity crisis that makes for some good reading while you’re sailing to your next sea fort.