We already knew from previous coverage gathered during this year’s E3 conference that the upcoming Forsaken Shores expansion for Sea of Thieves will be adding in a fiery new region called Devil’s Roar for players to explore, but we now also have a greater sense of just how massive Devil’s Roar will be.
In a recent interview with GameSpot, Sea of Thieves senior designer Shelley Preston explained how Devil’s Roar will be a massive new world area that will be split up into three “seas” or regions:
“There’s three seas, which are the different areas in the Sea of Thieves world. They have different visual styles, but they’re all kind of the same in terms of difficulty and challenge. So what we really wanted to do with the new area was for this expansion was for it to be visually striking, and a different, newer experience. We wanted it to have a major impact on gameplay as well, as it’s about a perilous voyage.”
Preston then touched on aspects of Devil’s Roar that we already knew, such as how players won’t be able to spawn in the region, they’ll have to purposefully sail into it. This is mainly due to the fact the region itself will turn against players if they aren’t careful:
“Part of the shroud that surrounded the Sea of Thieves [map] will recede and there’ll be a new area that you can get to, but you’ll never start in that area. It’s up to players to opt in to go on that voyage, and think about when you want to take on these more challenging, but more rewarding voyages. And then when you sail out there, it’s all kind of fire and ash. It’s like a volcanic kind of area. We really felt excited about this idea of making the world, the islands themselves almost are turning against you while you’re questing. So it’s not just about other players or AI threats. It’s actually the world itself.”
Sea of Thieves’ Forsaken Shores expansion isn’t scheduled to launch until this coming September, and before that players will actually get to try their hand at another expansion, Cursed Sails, which is due to launch this month. In the meantime, the currently ongoing Gunpowder Skeletons event should be more than enough to tide players over as they wait for the upcoming expansions.