A few years back, Sea of Thieves was the perfect game to get me – and many thousands of other players – through a very difficult time.

I discovered it during lockdown, when the COVID-19 pandemic was proving incredibly tough on everyone from a mental health perspective.

Yet I gradually fell out of love with the game, mostly thanks to the joyless griefing of other players.

Often it went beyond simple competitiveness and felt nasty for the sake of it; tiny amounts of treasure or clearly inexperienced crews just stolen and slaughtered for no real reason.

The joy of exploration and chilling out, cooking or fishing, was always tempered by the possibility of being hunted down and killed, or losing your ship, just because some other players thought it was funny.

It felt mean spirited and completely at odds with the joyful nature of the game, even if it is called Sea of Thieves.

I haven’t gone back to it since the last few times I played and was relentlessly pursued despite (or maybe because of) the fact I was on my own and no threat to anyone.

I completely lost my taste for the game.

Yet Season 10, releasing in December, is finally bringing a mode which will allow players to roam the seas in a private game session, free from other crews entirely.

It’s something many people have been crying out for, for a very long time. It will bring lots of people back to the game, I’m sure of it.

Despite the fact that some levels of progression will be locked in Safer Seas mode, I think most players who’ll want to use the mode aren’t bothered about progression anyway; they just want to have fun and enjoy the chilled out exploration and PvE combat in the game.

I’ll certainly be reinstalling it and taking to the sea again; who knows – maybe I can convince the old crew to get back together too!