Weeks after canceling Everwild and laying off developers, Xbox puts on a smile to celebrate Rare's 40-year legacy with a red hat in Sea of Thieves and a swanky controller

Weeks after its latest layoff blitz, Xbox is celebrating the 40th anniversary of Sea of Thieves developer Rare with some fresh merch, new displayable art, a few in-game cosmetics, and an admittedly nice-looking controller.

There's no getting past the fact that Xbox's recent downsizing – which resulted in the cancelation of Rare's long in-development adventure game Everwild, not to mention the shelving of The Initiative's reboot of Rare's classic FPS Perfect Dark – has a dampening effect on the celebratory nature of Rare's big anniversary. Still, Xbox is posting right on through it with a writeup detailing what's to come to mark the occasion.

"1985 was the height of the British home computer scene; an era of games delivered on cassette tapes by young coders producing innovative titles straight out of their bedrooms," writes Rare head of brand and licensing Adam Park. "Among the most notable of these developers were Ultimate, already responsible for ground-breaking titles like Jetpac and Knight Lore – but the studio's founders weren't about to rest on their laurels.

"This was the year that Ultimate co-creators Tim and Chris Stamper would form Rare – an ambitious new studio intended to focus on dedicated video game consoles, which had already established themselves in Japan and were about to take the rest of the world by storm."

Scallywags dwelling in the English Midlands can take part in Rare's birthday today by looking at a nondescript plaque posted at the original Ultimate building in Ashby-de-la-Zouch. For everyone else, you can check out a range of Rare merch including a Sea of Thieves hoodie, a Banjo Kazooie pin, and a Rare button-up shirt right here.

Rare says audiophiles will be able to pre-order a newly announced vinyl collection commemorating the studio's 40th anniversary later this week. Meanwhile, retro gamerz can look forward to a new Evercade cartridge collection of twelve classic Rare games.

In-game, Rare is hosting a "huge heritage sale" in Sea of Thieves' Pirate Emporium starting August 6, at which point there will be discounts on cosmetics themed around various Rare games, and starting tomorrow, August 5, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers can snag an exclusive Rare Ruby Emote to join in the celebrations on the high seas.

Things pick up on August 14 with the release of the new Sea of Thieves season, Smugglers' Tide, which will introduce a new cosmetic, the Rare Ruby Hat, which will be bundled in with select Ancient Coin packs. There's also a 40th anniversary cosmetics bundle coming to the in-game store at the same time, and if you log in before the end of the month you'll get the new Rare Ruby Eyepatch free of charge.

Head to an Outpost at that time and you'll find a shiny new selection of ruby-themed items, and over at the Pirate Emporium, you'll find limited-time Ruby Reaper's Mark sails and Rare Regalia items in the Plunder Pass.

Finally, what feels like the headliner of the 40th anniversary shenanigans is a new controller from 8BitDo celebrating the developer's heritage with a trademark blue/yellow color scheme, Sea of Thieves-centric accents, and the "40 Rare" logo imprinted on the lefthand side. That's available now for the now unfortunately commonplace price of $90 USD.

Again, it's a bittersweet celebration in the wake of bad news for a myriad of Xbox Game Studios, but 40 years is a long time, and I'm happy to see one of my all-time favorite developers in the spotlight despite the somewhat dubious context.

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