Sea of Thieves Private Crews Temporarily Removed

Just yesterday we shared the good news that with the latest Sea of Thieves patch came one feature that many players have been asking for: Private Crews. When the feature was finally implemented, many gamers were eager to squad up with more freedom and more exclusivity, but it looks like that release might have been a little premature.

Rare Ltd has just released a statement regarding the latest feature mentioning, "We have completed our emergency maintenance and the game is back online. The previously added features have been turned off temporarily and we will continue to monitor game performance and develop a plan to reinstate the features soon. Thank you for your patience."

It's unfortunate, and we don't know when exactly the feature will be brought back online, but it does appear to be a very short-term disappointment. The server issues are still ongoing, though the studio did mention that they are "still working" on making sure the problem is fully resolved and that is their primarily concern at this time.

As someone that actually enjoys the shared-world adventure that Sea of Thieves has to offer, I hope the fix happens soon. The title is charming when playing with friends, and Private Crews definitely helped make the environment a little more controllable. Until it comes back up, however, here's what the latest patch mentioned in regards to the crew changes:

• Open Crews: This option works in the same way you're used to. For the Galleon, an open crew will match four players together while also replacing players who leave during a game. For the Sloop, two players will be matched together, with a leaving player being replaced when possible.
  
• Closed Crews: This option allows a single player to begin a game on either a Galleon or a Sloop, allowing friends to join in when they're available. You can now play with any configuration of players up to the limit on each ship, which is 4 players on the Galleon and 2 players on the Sloop, as well as preventing non-friends from being able to join you. This option replaces the 3 player Galleon and Solo Sloop options in the Main Menu.
  
• Coming Soon: Additional functionality coming soon for Open and Closed Crews includes the ability to dynamically switch between Open and Closed while in the game, in addition to being able to make a session fully private by preventing friends joining.

Seas of Thieves is available now for Xbox One and PC, and yes - that includes cross-platform play!