Sea of Thieves has open FFA PvP baked in by default, and that doesn’t look to be going anywhere in the game’s next season. In fact, one could argue that even more PvP is on the way when Season Eight sails into the game on November 22nd, bringing along with it some faction-based PvP features.
Players can choose to align with either the Guardians of Fortune or Servants of the Flame by engaging with an hourglass item found in the captain’s quarters, which both flags them for open combat against opposing faction members and lets them enter a matchmade, 1v1 PvP scrap against an opposing faction’s ship. Doing so will bring that boat beneath the waves, move it near an enemy ship, and then surge it up from below for the fight in a designated area.
Should players flee this area, their ship will be blown apart and the opponent will be declared the winner, while very victory will make the hourglass more valuable, with more gold rewards and allegiance (aka factional XP) for every craft sunk until the crew of the ship votes to disengage their faction’s flag to cash out. A streak of up to four sunk ships will also tag a ship as a “champion” of its faction, but will also let other players see it on the world map – and if someone sinks the champion, they get extra rewards.
Allegiance can also be earned by doing normal PvE activities like hauling in valuable booty, which in turn increases the hourglass’ treasure grade. Should a faction-flagged ship successfully defeat an opposing faction’s boat while treasure is on board, that ship’s crew will earn even greater allegiance for each sunken ship.
Speaking of rewards, allegiance works similarly to XP earnings of other in-game groups in that it unlocks distinct cosmetics, including the eventual ability to turn into either a ghostly figure or a skeleton. Emissary flags can also be raised at the same time for those who truly want to rack up the rep and the subsequent danger. In addition, Season Eight will add two new alignments for captains to choose with lots of captain quarters cosmetics to earn in addition to the game’s usual battle pass reward tracks and cash shop goodies.
Readers will recall that Sea of Thieves had already tried to make PvPers enter into balanced fights with its Arena mode but sunsetted the feature this past January due to lack of player interest. Whether the wrinkle of having faction rewards and bringing the brawl to the open seas will change things remains to be seen, but for now interested players can scope out the video below for the details.
