Judging by the sound of the most recent Captain’s Log update from the folks at Atlas, the idea behind Wild Pirate Encampments sounds a fair bit like Skeleton Forts in Sea of Thieves. But hey, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery as they say, and these random spawns on the islands of the pirating world of Atlas aren’t exactly cookie-cutter.
For instance, a Wild Pirate Encampment (WPE) will have different levels in different regions that will be visible to players, representing an associated level of challenge and level of loot. They’ll also feature several unique defenses such as patrolling ships along with the expected cannon and turret defenses. They can even be found further inland at times, though obviously without any patrolling ships. Unless there’s a bug or something that makes land pirate ships a thing.
If players want to claim an island in Atlas, they’re going to need to clear these WPEs out, which pretty much works as one would expect by clearing out every baddie in the fort. Once the task is done, all structures in the WPE are transferred to the settlement owner and a loot box will spawn. Furthermore, a defeated WPE will never respawn again, though an Encampment that isn’t fully defeated can eventually work back to full strength.
In addition to these “wild” locations, the folks at Atlas are introducing a non-dedicated multiplayer mode that will let players host a server and be a client at the same time. This feature will let up to eight players hook up if one is more inclined to small-group multiplayer.
The devs expect non-dedicated multiplayer to go live sometime this week, while WPEs are set to enter a beta state at the end of the month. On the subject of release dates: Mega Update 3 is still in the works, but has no firm arrival to PTR or live servers, so maybe take those other release windows with a small grain of salt.
