Sea of Thievesessentially has a trifold plan for player content into 2022. First up is the traditional seasonal method of delivery seen in the past, but then there are Adventures. These are immersive, cinematic experiences where players get to impact major choices and leave alasting mark on theSea of Thievesworld. Finally, there are Mysteries that offer a different, yet equally immersive, experience.
Mysteries will essentially blend in-game quests with the elements of an ARG, where players will have to solve mysteries both in and out of game. Whereas Adventures are pretty regular in their release schedule, Mysteries have multiple factors involving player engagement, player progression on the current clues, and so on. Overall, it’s a pretty interestingnew feature forSea of Thieves, and Game Rant recently spoke to creative director Mike Chapman and executive producer Joe Neate about them.
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The first mystery players will encounter involves a murder, withSea of Thievesplayers having to figure out who did what. As Chapman described, players are “going to be investigating, piece together, all of these clues…who are the suspects? Who are your first bunch of suspects that you think it might be? Then, there’s center information in the community and different clues from different kinds of secret entities in the world.”
Players do not know yet who will die inSea of Thieves, but Rare is aiming for veryemotional storytelling with Mysteries and Adventures, so it’ll be interesting to see who loses their life and how the clues come to lead players down one path or another. Because Mysteries involveARG elements, that are aspects that are in-game and out-of-game. In-game, Chapman used “finding hidden thing scratched into tree trunks…and using the tools in the game to piece together the clues rather than just observing” as how Mysteries involve players in the game world.
Of course, we had to ask about the real-world ARG elements, with Chapman summarizing it up as follows:
Yeah, so what’s really important to us is that we don’t use a bunch of abstract mechanics that almost feel counter to the spirit of the mystery. So with the ARG, we love the idea of the Sea of Thieves' world feeling like it exists off the screen, but you still feel like you can get immersed in it even when you’re not playing the game because I think, like I say we want to capture people’s emotions, capture their imagination, and get people to kind of theorize what the next step is. So everything we do with the ARG will be completely in tone and tap into the unique theme of that specific mystery.
There are a lot of exciting things coming toSea of Thieves, and these Mysteries may go a long way with keeping players engaged in the world. For now, players just have to wait and see who meets their fate in the upcoming murder mystery.
Sea of Thievesis available on PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
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