Rare just did something it has never quite done before: it handed the keys to the entire ocean over to players. Sea of Thieves kicked off Season 20: Custom Seas on June 18, 2026, and it is comfortably the studio’s most ambitious free update in years — a full creation suite that lets pirates design, script and share their own game modes inside the world Rare has spent eight years building.
For a live game that has thrived on emergent chaos, this is a logical and slightly wild next step. Instead of waiting for the next Adventure or Tall Tale, crews can now author their own.
Custom Seas was first shown during the Xbox Games Showcase and arrives free for everyone who owns the game, whether on PC, Xbox or PlayStation 5. Here is what is actually in it.
A level editor for the open sea
The headline feature is a proper creation tool. Players can set the rules of an experience, drop in items and enemies wherever they like, assign crews to teams, and tune the conditions of victory. You are no longer playing on Rare’s terms — you are setting them, then inviting friends and the wider community to dive in. It is the kind of sandbox-within-a-sandbox that has kept other live games healthy for a decade, now grafted onto the most atmospheric pirate fantasy in the medium.
Rowboat Royale, deathmatch and hide & seek
To show the range of what is possible, Rare seeded the update with example modes that lean hard into the game’s sillier instincts. There is Rowboat Royale, a six-player scrap fought entirely from cannon-equipped rowboats; a Team Deathmatch built around flame cannons; a King of the Hill-style control mode; classic Hide & Seek; and a straight-up Rowboat Racing mode. None of them are things you would have found in the base game a month ago, and all of them hint at how strange and specific community creations could get.
Cinematic tools for the directors among us
Custom Seas also layers in a surprisingly deep set of camera tools. A revamped Free Camera mode and options like a tilt-shift angle let creators frame their own cinematic moments, turning the editor into a machinima toolkit as much as a game-design one. Expect the community’s clip channels to fill up quickly.
For a game that has weathered the usual live-service ups and downs, Season 20 is a statement of confidence: rather than simply adding more content, Rare is betting that its players will keep the seas full themselves. Custom Seas is live now and free for all owners of Sea of Thieves on PC, Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5.
