Sea of Thieves season 7 delayed to August to add polish and avoid crunch

Sea of Thieves season 7 has been delayed a little bit to allow Rare to polish it up and avoid crunch.

As announced by executive producer Joe Neate over on Sea of Thieves' official news feed, the particularly ambitious new season simply needs a little more time in the oven to make sure it's in shipshape and to ensure developers aren't burning themselves out in the process. As such, it's now due to go live on August 4 instead of July 21 as originally planned.

"As we started getting closer to the originally stated release date, it became apparent that things were coming in hotter than we liked and there was a real risk of not delivering to the quality and polish we expect, as well as putting undue pressure across the team to get it all over the line," Neate wrote.

In case you missed its announcement during last month's Xbox showcase, Sea of Thieves season 7 is easily one of the biggest expansions since the game switched over to a seasonal update model in January 2021. The big highlight is what Rare calls "Captaincy," which means what you think it does: you get to be the captain of your own ship, which means buying one, naming it, and customizing it inside and out. Before, you would spawn with a new, undecorated ship every time your old one sunk, so this is a fundamental change.

Season 7 will also bring about the game's next Adventure, titled A Hunter's Cry, on August 18. We don't know much about it yet, but the time-limited narrative jaunt will likely continue the story set up in previous Adventures.

Find out where we ranked Sea of Thieves on our list of the best Xbox Series X games to play right now.