Rare has issued a roadmap detailing its upcoming plans for Sea of Thieves on Xbox One and PC. The centerpiece of the plan includes big content updates through the rest of the year. Those big updates will be supplemented by regular weekly events with new goals and rewards. The weekly updates and regular content updates will be available for free.

　　The first big update, coming this May, is called The Hungering Deep. It will add a new AI threat, as well as new mechanics and rewards. This summer, the Cursed Sails update will include a new ship type, and then Forsaken Shores will add a new area to the map. After that, three more updates are planned for release by the end of 2018.

　　The studio stressed that its plans will evolve based on feedback. Other systems it planned to introduce within a few months of launch--such as Pets and Ship Captaincy--have been placed on the back-burner due to other priorities. "Expect our plans to continue to be fluid but always with the goals listed above as our guiding principles," the update read.

　　Rare has already shown some capacity for rolling with the punches, as it dropped a planned death penalty feature shortly after announcing it. It has been supporting the game with regular patches, mostly to fix bugs and performance issues so far, but now we know it has much bigger plans than that. It's a good sign for a game that was criticized in GameSpot's review for feeling repetitive and light. If the promise of regular updates is enough to bring you aboard, check out some tips on things to know before you set sail.