Sea of Thieves Season 20 Hands You the Keys to the Ocean — Custom Game Modes Are Here

by Geth Author

After nine years of Rare building every rule of the ocean, Sea of Thieves Season 20 launched June 18 and handed some of that control to players. Custom Seas is a free feature set that lets the community create and run their own game modes within the game's sandbox.

What Custom Seas actually gives you

The feature set includes admin tools any host can use: creature spawning, fast travel between locations, custom scoreboards, and game state controls. Want to run a kraken-hunt speed trial, a no-combat treasure race, or a structured PvP tournament with a scoreboard? Custom Seas gives you the tools to build and run it. Also included is a Free Camera mode — a high-definition capture tool that lets players frame shots and record footage without the usual third-person constraints. It's a small addition, but one the community has requested for years.

A structural change too

Season 20 also quietly changes Sea of Thieves's update format. Previous seasons used a three-Act structure that spread content across weeks. Season 20 drops that — all Custom Seas tools launched simultaneously on day one. Rare is betting that creative players will generate enough content variation that Act-gated rollouts are no longer needed. That's a reasonable bet. Sea of Thieves has always been at its best when emergent player behavior fills the gaps between official content updates. Custom Seas is Rare institutionalizing that dynamic.

Supporting events at launch

The June 19–24 window brings Twitch Drops including an emote, a jacket, a cannon, a title, and an exclusive Indigo Tides Cutlass. A Community Weekend runs June 26–29 with Emissary Grade boosts and Pop-Up Plunder events. Starting June 22, a Pirates of the Caribbean anniversary commemorative cutlass becomes available for completing classic Tall Tales.

Why it matters

Sea of Thieves has been a live-service game since 2018. Custom Seas is the first time Rare has meaningfully delegated creative authority over the game's systems to its playerbase. That's a significant philosophical shift — and potentially the content generation engine the game needs to stay fresh heading into its ninth year. If you're a lapsed pirate wondering whether to return, this is the moment Rare has been building toward. Log in, steal the wheel, and build something weird.