Sea of ​​Thieves: New Season 8 puts the focus on PvP

There will soon be an open faction battle in Sea of ​​Thieves: With Season 8 of the pirate game you can join one of two factions and plunge into open PvP.

In addition to on-demand PvP, there are other innovations in Season 8, which starts on November 22nd, around four months after Season 7. Among other things, you can look forward to new cosmetic rewards as usual and a new Season Pass is also pending the door.

Sea of ​​Thieves: The new PvP in Season 8

With Season 8 you can now choose one of two factions on board your ship using a special hourglass: Either you hoist the flag for the Guardians of Fortune around the pirate lord or you join the Servants of the Flame from Flameheart.

Once you’ve decided, you can go hunting and attacking ships of opposing factions. The special feature is a new matchmaking system: if you don’t want to search the open sea for enemies endlessly, you can go underground with your ship – which is very reminiscent of Pirates of the Caribbean – and be transported directly to a suitable opponent. According to developer Rare, this should enable fast battles without the players having to constantly switch servers manually.

Once you are in combat, a combat circle will form. The ship that defeats the enemy at the end or does not leave the said circle wins. The rewards are gold on the one hand and loyalty on the other, which will increase the rank of your chosen faction. The former is only available if you safely redeem the value of your hourglass in an outpost.

New hideouts for the factions

The more times you sink a ship, the more loyalty you get, but it becomes increasingly dangerous for you. From four sunken ships, you automatically appear on the map for all other players and thus ensure that you become the hunted from the hunter. Finally, there is a big reward for the players who sink such a ship.

Along with the two new factions, there are also special hideouts that you can visit. New characters, very special challenges, new cosmetic rewards and more await you there. However, the hiding places can only be entered if you have sworn your allegiance to the respective factions.

By the way: Just because you choose one of the new factions doesn’t mean that you have to do PvP all the time. You can also activate the hourglass in addition to the ambassador flags and continue to pursue normal sea activities, i.e. search for treasures, transport goods or destroy skeletons. However, there is a risk that you will end up in a battle at any time that you really have to fight.

New Season Pass for Season 8

In addition to the big PvP changes, Sea of ​​Thieves will of course also offer a new loot pass with Season 8. This consists of 100 different levels, which are almost typical for the industry, which give you access to various rewards. There is both a free and a paid tier.