Sea of Thieves is entering its sixth season of content, and while most games celebrate major new releases with the addition of new features, unlocks, achievements, and more, the game's Update 2.5.0 is set to remove a batch of content as well, most notably the dedicated Arena PvP game mode.
Though this change has been a long time coming at this point, PvP players might not be thrilled by the fact that Sea of Thieves is outright removing its Arena and Sea Dog reputation unlocks from the current rotation of active content. At the same time, a wealth of new content is, indeed, being made available for players to enjoy, so update 2.5.0 should be a net positive overall.
Sea of Thieves' season 6 content comes bundled with update 2.5.0, and its most notable feature is the introduction of Sea Forts. These mysterious new adventure opportunities come in six distinctive varieties and should begin to randomly appear as players explore the open seas. Patch notes suggest that Sea Forts will be reasonably difficult, and that players ought to come in well-prepared to handle prolonged engagements with powerful enemies.
As the Sea of Thieves' PvP Arena is shutting down with update 2.5.0, there's the matter of Arena-exclusive Sea Dogs achievements, unlockables, titles, and more. According to the patch notes, players who had previously unlocked any of the Arena-related items should still have access to them via The Outpost, if said rewards hadn't been claimed. Further, players who had reached Sea Dog ranks 5 and 50 will be getting two more batches of exclusive cosmetics, depending on how far they got in the Arena.
A potentially major issue with the removal of Arena is that all Sea of Thieves Arena achievements are inaccessible as well, meaning that achievement hunters no longer have the chance to get all the game's unlocks in any way, shape, or form. Arena-related achievements are now marked as "Legacy" items via the Xbox interface, while they have been outright removed from Steam entirely.
Of course, the majority of Sea of Thieves' rarest items are still readily accessible for players to work towards. On top of existing cosmetics, weapons, and gadgets, the game is also now hosting its sixth season of content. With 100 more levels of Renown to progress through - some of which will require Sea Fort exploration - the loss of Arena might not be as big of a hit to Sea of Thieves as some may believe it to be.
Sea of Thieves is available now on PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
Source: Sea of Thieves