Sea of Thieves season 17 is called Smugglers' Tide, and it brings on board a new faction, new "smuggling voyages," and "explosive new loot"

Sea of Thieves season 17 is officially titled Smugglers' Tide, and – you guessed it – it's all about embracing the smuggler life.

It's kind of surprising that it took Sea of Thieves seven years to properly introduce smuggling as its own dedicated role with seemingly unique mechanics and loot, but here we are. During the Xbox Games Showcase today, Rare took the stage with a cinematic trailer for the update, teasing a whole new faction for the smuggling-minded, "explosive" new loot, and a new set of smuggling-centric voyages.

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It seems like details are still pretty light at the moment, but, at the very least, we're getting a new faction, which is cool. Otherwise, it seems like a pretty typical new Sea of Thieves season with some new loot and voyages to uncover.

This could be a stretch, but it also looks like some iteration of the keg rowboats from the Lost Sands update are coming back. If so, it's obviously nothing new, but those were one of the most chaotic – and, thus, enjoyable – additions to the game in recent memory, so I'd be happy to see them return.

There's still no release date for season 17, but with season 16 only going live a couple of weeks ago and the standard duration between seasons being roughly three months – I'd be surprised to see it release any time soon.

In the meantime, find out where Sea of Thieves docked on our list of the best online games to play right now.