Sea of Thieves Season 20 Launches Today with Custom Seas: Design Your Own Game Modes

Sea of Thieves welcomes Season 20 on June 18, and it arrives with a landmark feature: Custom Seas, the most ambitious creative tool Rare has ever built for its pirate adventure. According to the official announcement on Steam, the toolset launches fully formed on day one of the season, though the studio will continue refining its features based on community feedback. Rare is also using the occasion to permanently retire the monthly Acts system that has structured the past several seasons.

Custom Seas: The Game Editor the Community Had Been Waiting For

Custom Seas puts a full suite of game-design tools in the hands of any player — no technical knowledge required. Through Session Switches, players can tweak everything from available weapons and enemy types to World Events and weather conditions for each session. Any configuration can be saved as a Preset to recall and share with friends, supported by a lobby and leaderboard system that makes organizing both competitive and cooperative sessions straightforward.

Command Menu and Free Camera

Once inside a session, the command menu opens up even more possibilities: players can fast-travel between map zones, spawn treasures and creatures in varying quantities, and activate a free camera to capture screenshots and footage of the Sea of Thieves world from angles impossible in standard play. That last feature will be particularly welcomed by the content-creator community that has grown around the game for years.

Rewards, Feats, and a Redesigned Season Pass

While the usual Commendation progress and Season Pass levels are paused inside Custom Seas, players aren't left without incentives: silver earned in these sessions counts toward new Seasonal Feats, which grant a Renown bonus upon returning to standard play. Among this season's exclusive rewards are a commemorative painting and the Custom Crafter Sails, a visual badge for players who prove their talent as game designers. The Season Pass itself has been redesigned to give players more freedom in choosing what to unlock — a recurring request from the player base. Shops and in-game markets are also refreshing their catalogs, and the live-event calendar will roll out new activities alongside the return of fan favorites from past seasons.

A Creative Gamble with Real Potential — and a Few Open Questions

Custom Seas represents Rare's boldest bet in years: handing content design over to the community could dramatically extend the game's longevity if players respond with original creations, but it could equally fall flat if participation proves thin. The removal of monthly Acts eliminates a structure that, however divisive, gave veterans a clear sense of rhythm. As we covered in Sea of Thieves Season 20: Custom Seas Lets You Create Your Own Game Modes, the feature showed enormous promise from its first reveal — now it's time to see whether the execution can turn that promise into something that genuinely transforms the way people play.

What custom game mode would you most like to build with Custom Seas? Share your ideas in the comments.