A video showcasing the changes we've made to the island over time and celebrating this unique piece of environment work.
Port Merrick at sunrise.
The docking and transit area underneath the lighthouse, acting as the secondary grand entrance to the island's faciltiies.
The first stone lighthouse building in the main game world of Sea of Thieves, beckoning players towards this newly updated island.
A view across the first stone bridge that was constructed, with street lights lining the sides and the tavern and emporium buildings in the background.
The Port Merrick ship crest turned welcome sign, kitbashed out of existing pieces to be themed for the Hunter's Call faction which saved the island, in keeping with the lore.
A top down view of the central island and market bridge, showing the scale and structure of the architecture we built for this island.
One of the corner buildings on the main island. It's not interactive and doesn't really have a function, but brings a bit of extra life, detail and structure to the place.
The chillout garden on the central island. A relaxing place to retreat to after a busy day of piracy.
A view over the beer garden behind the tavern on the main island.
A monument to the man himself, Merrick, the character that lead the charge to save this island.
The underground entrance and loading dock for the Captain's Head tavern.
The basement storage area of the Captain's Head Tavern which serves as a connecting environment between the tavern and sewers.
The Reaper's Bones area. These guys aren't welcome here anymore, so they have retreated underground into the sewers to conduct their shady dealings.
A view of the new Sovereign headquarters, who get their own fancy island to the side with a lush garden out the front!
One of the main entries to the island, a lush garden complete with a wishing fountain!
The Gold Hoarder's bank building. It was only fitting that this faction spend their hard-earned cash on a fancy bank complete with a gold vault.
The counter inside the Gold Hoarder's Bank.
Port Merrick at sunset with the lighthouse in the foreground.
During the Lost Sands adventure in 2022, player actions determined that Golden Sands Outpost would be saved from the hands of the Reaper's Bones... As a result, we spent 7 months upgrading the island to what is now known as Port Merrick. The first port town in the open world adventure of Sea of Thieves.
I had the distinct honour and pleasure to help lead this project with a fantastic team of artists. An initial layout was made by our environment lead Andrew Finch, which I then took over to plan out the most complex evolving environment we'd ever built for the game. I devised a schedule for every stage of construction and how it would be delivered to players on a month-by-month basis, whilst telling several smaller stories along the way and keeping all gameplay on the island functional the entire time. This involved a lot of collaboration with different departments, making sure all the content for any given month would come together in time with our release schedule.
I was responsible for the monthly construction site environments that changed over time, all the exterior areas of the island as well as the interior for the Gold Hoarder's Bank, the entire Lighthouse, the Reaper's area and underground sewer system. This was one of the greatest challenges of my career thus far and I am immensely proud to present the final results here. We had so much fun building this and in return we got some amazing reactions from our dedicated community of fans, picking apart the details every single month, and making some really creative roleplaying content of their own!
Of course, every environment in Sea of Thieves is the result of a huge collaborative effort from the Rare team, so the credit for the majority of individual assets in these scenes goes out to my wonderful colleagues and talented outsource partners. I have to give a few special shoutouts to the main contributors for all the excellent environment work seen here.
- Andrew Finch for getting the ball rolling, supporting us throughout and lighting the place!
- Sophie Ingledew for creating the single largest tavern in the game, filled to the brim with details, and for the initial layout of the Gold Hoarder's Bank.
- Jamie Read for his great work on the outpost shops and fancy new Emporium building, as well as the initial layout of the Order of Souls building.
- Max Ouaddane at Flix Interactive for his work on the Order of Souls, Shipwright and Sovereign buildings.
- Szymon Wilczynski at Flix Interactive for his work on the Sovereign building and underground secret area featured in a later adventure.
- Nicola Licandro at Flix Interactive for kicking off the Sovereign building.
- Brett Donaldson at Flix Interactive, for building the Merchant Alliance a unique looking market area.
- Any many, many more folks at Rare in the various departments for supporting this project along the way!
