With Sea of Thieves’ latest limited-time event, Black Powder Stashes, now out in the wild, Rare has turned its chatter back to the future of its piratical adventure – and has now revealed more on its plans for the game’s long-promised pets and micro-transaction store.
Rare has, of course, been open about its plans to implement a micro-transaction store in Sea of Thieves, even discussing it prior to the game’s release last March. Initially, it intended to introduce micro-transactions in the form of interactive pets (think along the lines of cats, parrots, and monkeys) “in the few months after launch”. However, those plans changed when Rare, following post-release feedback, overhauled its content roadmap, placing pets (and Sea of Thieves’ fabled Captaincy Update) “on the back burner”.
Pets resurfaced earlier this year, as part of Sea of Thieves’ Insider testing programme, but the decision was made to delay their debut (initially planned for May’s mammoth Anniversary Update) to make improvements following Insider feedback.
Now, however, speaking in this week’s developer update, Sea of Thieves’ executive producer Joe Neate has explained that pets are “much closer now to the place that we really want them” and will be returning for Insider testing soon.
Official Sea of Thieves Developer Update: July 23rd 2019 Watch on YouTube
Pets, as has been the plan all along, will eventually launch as the flagship items in Sea of Thieves’ new storefront, “as a way to generate additional revenue…as we continue to run it as a service”. Pets are designed to be a “fun, social” item (one player can purchase a pet, but all crew members can experience it), and will follow the criteria that Rare has laid out for its store.