Sea of Thieves is adding private single-crew servers in December

Five and a half years and endless requests from the community later, Rare has announced it'll finally be adding private servers to Sea of Thieves - meaning a single crew of up to four players can explore the world without fear of PvP encounters - starting this December, as part of the multiplayer pirate adventure's Season 10.

Season 10 itself gets underway on 19th October, and will introduce a major new feature each month ahead of 2024 - essentially meaning all content originally planned for 2023 will arrive before the end of the year, despite a painfully protracted, seven-month-long Season 9.

First up, on 19th October, Sea of Thieves will introduce Guilds, described as a "new way for players to form meaningful bonds beyond their immediate crew". Essentially, any player that's reached Captain status and has their own ship can start a guild - picking a name, logo, and emblem when then do so - which can then support up to 24 invited players.