Rare has released a new Sea of Thieves Season 11 deep dive video, and rather fortuitously, it's got lots of information about the game's new Dive feature, plus all the other stuff that's coming in the new season.
After Guilds in Season 10 and more encounters with monsters in Season 9, Sea of Thieves Season 11 is all about improving the questing and raiding experience.
First up, we're introduced to the Quest Table, a new feature that's intended to make sure each of the game's sessions has "a clear and meaningful start point".
The Quest Table brings together all of Sea of Thieves' different activities, including Voyages, Tall Tales, and more, and it'll show you information like how long activities will take as well.
Rare also shows off the new Dive feature, which will let you "dive...straight into the action immediately", bypassing travel time to get to an adventure. That includes World Events, too, so you shouldn't be missing out on too many of those going forward.
Gameplay engineer Chris Marlow says that if you liked encountering other ships on the open seas on your (or their) way to an adventure, this new Dive feature will actually expedite those more exciting confrontations.
According to Marlow, the Dive feature lowers the chance that a ship will be empty and therefore not worth plundering; if more crews are diving, then more ships on the sea will be full as they sail back to hand in loot.
Season 11 will introduce Trading Company rewards for completing voyages, with the aim of making voyages feel more rewarding across the season and bringing them in line with other Sea of Thieves experiences.
As far as Trading Companies go, new Distinctions have been added, allowing you to progress most Trading Companies up to level 100. It's essentially a Prestige system that means it "always feels like you're getting something out of your sessions", according to Rare.
If all of this sounds a little overwhelming, don't worry; the new player experience is also being worked on in Season 11, with new tutorials coming that will help you to grasp the basics of Sea of Thieves.
Season 11 of Sea of Thieves will begin on January 23rd. The game is available right now for PC via Steam and the Microsoft Store, and it's also available on Xbox consoles.
