Sea of Thieves is pulling voice and text chat between crews from Arena due to toxicity

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Rare says more than half of Sea of Thieves' toxicity reports come from Arena, despite it making up only 3% of playtime

sea of thieves
(Image credit: Xbox Game Studios)

Rare will no longer let Sea of Thieves players in Arena mode communicate with other crews via voice or text chat due to toxicity reports. This applies to the Arena mode's Sea Dog Tavern as well as crews sailing out on the open sea.

The change will come with the introduction of Sea of Thieves Season One tomorrow, which will also see Rare stepping away from further Arena development in general. Apparently, players are a lot meaner in the PvP-focused Arena mode than the main Adventure mode, which itself has a pretty active PvP community.

In the announcement, Rare shared a startling statistic: "In a given month, just over half of toxicity reports that hit our Customer Service team come from the Arena, despite Arena accounting for around 3% of overall playtime in Sea of Thieves."

Rare says the move is designed to make Arena mode "a more welcoming" experience, and honestly, it's a good place to start. For what other reason would opposing crews in an exclusively PvP environment want to communicate with each other than to relentlessly talk crap?

We'll still be able to use emotes and pre-canned messages from the chat wheel to communicate with other crews, and of course voice and text chat will stick around for in-crew talk, but going forward we'll be spared from hearing what would surely be spirited, yet polite, constructive criticism from enemy ships.

Sea of Thieves' first season will usher in a new era of bigger, three-month updates with smaller monthly updates in-between. Coming in season one is a new progression system, a battle pass, new rewards, and a bunch more.

Here are some essential Sea of Thieves tips if you're just starting out.

Jordan Gerblick
Jordan Gerblick

After earning an English degree from ASU, I worked as a corporate copy editor while freelancing for places like SFX Magazine, Screen Rant, Game Revolution, and MMORPG on the side. I got my big break here in 2019 with a freelance news gig, and I was hired on as GamesRadar's west coast Staff Writer in 2021. That means I'm responsible for managing the site's western regional executive branch, AKA my home office, and writing about whatever horror game I'm too afraid to finish.