As we committed to in last year’s inaugural Community Direct, we’re surveying players every Season to find out how you found its features, and where you’d like to see us do more. Season 17 was no exception, so we’re here to share with you the outcomes of our Big Listen survey for The Smugglers’ League.

Before we get into the finer details, we want to say a huge thanks to everyone who’s participated in our recent surveys. We’re finding that these surveys provide really valuable signals for us to go and act upon – we know they’re not short, and we’re grateful to those of you who spend the time and energy to give us such comprehensive reads on where you’re at with Sea of Thieves.

As with our last set of results, we discussed our findings at length on the latest episode of the Sea of Thieves Podcast – you can check that out over on YouTube (or any other reputable streaming service) to get a long-form look at our thoughts and feelings:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWwHBKGjTuo
However, for the short version – let’s get stuck in. 

The overall player rating for Season 17 was 5.6 out of 10, vs Season 16’s 6.1 – so unfortunately, players found this Season’s offering 5% less satisfying than Season 16.

This is in line with what we were anticipating; we announced the smuggling theme at the Xbox Summer Showcase to lukewarm reception, and can acknowledge that we struggled to win players over with the concept from there. Given that there were a couple of months between the initial announcement and release of the content, it’s fair to say that this sentiment felt prolonged too.

The smuggling focus did lay some valuable groundwork for future events and features, with the upcoming Bilge Rat Weekender leveraging Smugglers’ Voyages, but we recognise that much of Season 17’s feature set did not resonate with you all.

Season 17 Content Highlights

When it comes to what you enjoyed: Black Powder Barrels and Reaper Fortresses were the most popular features of the Season, scoring 4.1 and 4.2 out of 5 respectively. Improved weapon switching was third most enjoyed of the Season 17 feature set, and this has really highlighted the importance and impact of significant quality-of-life updates to our core community of players.

With some other key quality-of-life improvements on the way – stay tuned to our Developer Update series for news on these – we feel good about revisiting hot topics and making features and tools more enjoyable with tweaks and twists.

Least popular of Season 17 were the Smugglers’ Hideouts and the Smugglers’ Route Run Voyages, scoring 2.9 and 2.6 out of 5 respectively. We hear you, and with the introduction of the Bilge Rats Weekender, our new pirate festival, we really hope to revitalise player satisfaction with how some of these features feel.

Game health improved regarding cheating and toxicity by 1% – which is a small improvement, but importantly not a regression. Given some of the in-flight work we’ve got going on at the moment regarding Hourglass and cheating/toxicity prevention measures, we feel confident that future surveys are going to show this needle moving further in the right direction.

As discussed on the podcast, we have a cross-discipline strike force working together to tackle player toxicity all up – and we look forward to sharing some of the insights and changes that come out of this new internal initiative to make our game a kinder, safer place to play.

Ghoul & Glory and Season 17 Community Weekend scored highly on our Event schedule portion of the survey, both scoring 3.7/5. We don’t want to rest on our laurels there though, and we have some changes coming to Community Weekend, where we plan to refresh the feature set and make sure it’s feeling as fun and as fresh as it did when we introduced it back in 2022.

However, we’re really buoyed to know that years on, these events are still broadly hitting the mark on providing you with fun and worthwhile reasons to play Sea of Thieves.

There hasn’t been any major change to what you’d all like to see from us, with the top requests matching what we shared in Season 16’s Big Listen survey results[www.seaofthieves.com].

However, if you’re intrigued about what’s on the horizon, we have news! Our next Community Direct will air on March 30th as part of our broader Sea of Thieves eighth anniversary celebrations, and will provide a look at this year’s upcoming plans for Season 20 and beyond.

We’re excited to be able to share this view on Sea of Thieves’ future; we know there’s been a lot of change in the winds lately, but we’re building towards a more meaningful, more sustainable roadmap that ensures we’re delivering content you enjoy, to a quality we’re proud of. More on that in March, when we unveil what’s next on the seas!

As promised, we’re back with another Showcase to recap all the remaining Spotlights from 2025, tying everything up in a neat bow for now. To date, we’ve brought you 64 Spotlights across nine Showcase articles stretching back to 2022 (with many more in the preceding years) and there are nine more still to cover below, so let’s not delay! Here are the last of 2025’s Spotlighted players…

To get things moving on our latest list, we jump all the way back to last April and our Community Spotlight with GingerJefferson[www.seaofthieves.com]! As the proud winner of ten #SoTShot competitions, this Visionary Artist of the Seas had a lot to say about making art within Sea of Thieves and the challenges he’s faced as a dedicated perfectionist trying to unlock that coveted 100% game completion.

For the next Spotlight, we decided that one pirate simply wasn’t enough and squeezed in both Chloe and Aimee from ChloeSaurasCrafts[www.seaofthieves.com]! This creative pair are best known for their real-world props and dioramas, and were happy to talk about what got them into gaming and reminisce over playing the Sea of Thieves Alpha together. They even shared their very first Sea of Thieves creation…

We had another Visionary Artist of the Seas up next, in the form of EliEelEye[www.seaofthieves.com]. A member of countless Sea of Thieves communities and keen maker of musical parodies, Eli is also something of a driving force among players, and proud of his part in the campaign to add the Alabaster Wildcat to the game as an Insider Programme reward. Go find out more about his community shenanigans!

As we entered August, we turned our sights to an artist whose vibrant illustrations have won the hearts of many a Sea of Thieves player. Middy[www.seaofthieves.com] was a hit in the community from the very first Sea of Thieves piece she shared, and she talked us through her discovery of the game and the start of her art journey, as well as her triumph over nervousness when it comes to multiplayer gaming.

Moving on from art made using a pencil to that of the culinary variety, we spoke to Shredz[www.seaofthieves.com], author of Sea of Thieves: The Cookbook[www.seaofthieves.com]! Shredz shared her journey from streaming Fallout 76 on Mixer to devising recipes for pirates, and the challenges inherent in being a part-time streamer. Fortunately for anyone looking to follow in her footsteps, she also had plenty of advice to offer.

Sticking with the artistic theme, next up was September’s encounter with Soycha[www.seaofthieves.com]! A player with a very distinctive pirate, Soycha’s work will be familiar to attendees of SoTFest. In his Spotlight, he told us about his first Rare game experience – GoldenEye’s famed ‘Slappers Only’ mode – and his love of extraction shooters, before looking back on his history of making Sea of Thieves art.

Our next Spotlight featured Community Stream Team member Makakar[www.seaofthieves.com], who strives to be a champion of charitable causes, raising money for GameBlast, Women’s Aid and more. He talked about balancing streaming with a full-time job and a family, as well as networking with other creators, before ending on the most important note of all: his intense hatred of cucumbers.

Our penultimate Spotlight zeroed in on a pirate known for two things: a fine sense of style, and an extreme fondness for rodents. It could only be Lorenz Sinclair[www.seaofthieves.com], a pirate who delights in sharing fashion tips and pirate outfits. He told us about his community experiences, his favourite cosmetic (the Mender’s Jacket!) and his ideal future fashion additions (jewellery, so much jewellery).

And the last Spotlight of 2025 went to famed prop-master JustJobiwan[www.seaofthieves.com]! A long-time creator of costumes and models, he explained how a love of pirate stories ensured Sea of Thieves became a focal point of his crafting projects. From his first pirate cosplay in 2019 to the challenge of building a replica Chest of Legends, he offered us a fine glimpse into the world of prop creation.

And with that, we’re back up to date! This instalment takes us to a total of well over 70 Spotlights summarised in this Showcase series, so if you enjoy learning more about your endlessly varied fellow pirates on the Sea of Thieves, you won’t be short of reading material. You can always start with our previous Showcase right here on Steam, while all Spotlights in their entirety – Community[www.seaofthieves.com], Creator[www.seaofthieves.com] and Legend[www.seaofthieves.com] – are discoverable in the Sea of Thieves website’s trusty News[www.seaofthieves.com] section. Have a browse, pick out the ones that pique your interest and we hope to see you again sometime when the Spotlight sends out its beam once more!