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Sea of Thieves' is losing the PvP mode The Arena

It'll be removed in a few weeks.

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We are used to hear about major new additions to Sea of Thieves almost on a monthly basis, and it was just a week ago we reported about Shrouded Islands, the first narrative Adventure for the game - which will be followed by a new Adventure each month. But this time, something is about to be removed.

On the official homepage for the game, Rare says they have decided to remove The Arena, a PvP mode which was added back in 2019. They explain that only 2% of the digital pirates time with the game have tried this mode and they simply believe their resources can be better spent with other aspects of Sea of Thieves:

"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. 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."

They continue by explaining that a competitive mode takes a whole lot of more work than anticipated, while also admitting that they've learned a lot from all of this:

"We learned a lot from the launch and development of The Arena, but one thing that really stands out is that launching a competitive mode is a far bigger investment and requires a far bigger creative focus than we realised going in. Despite sharing a lot of the same mechanics as Adventure, it is an entirely different experience, and one that would have required a huge amount of mindshare and development effort to stand alongside it - and given the disparity in audience sizes, it just became impossible to justify."

The Arena will be removed when Season Six begins on March 10, which hopefully will add enough new content to soften the disappointment to some extent. There will also be bonus content for everyone that has reached Sea Dogs rank 5 by that date, and something extra special for gamers at Sea Dogs rank 50.

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