Sea of Thieves could get a battle royale mode at some point in the future. The multiplayer setting of Rare’s swashbuckling pirate adventure means that a battle royale could be made to fit the game, but the developer says that it would want to make its take on the mode “unique” to Sea of Thieves.

The game’s design director, Mike Champman, says that while the developers “see the battle royale thing,” they are keen to approach the genre, which has found major success over the past year, “differently.”

It’s fair to say that none of the titles on our list of the best battle royale games take place on or around enormous galleons.

In an interview with Game Informer, Chapman says that he thinks that “there will be opportunities to do that kind of thing differently. It’s interesting where you can take PvP in the game, but we’d want to put a unique Sea of Thieves spin on it and do something completely surprising.”

In the same interview, studio head Craig Duncan says “it’s not about taking something that works super well in another game, and going, ‘Hey, let’s start everyone in a Sea of Thieves map from different points and have you all come together.’”

That’s disappointing, because I’d very much enjoy watching small boats launch out of a bigger, flying boat, and drop into the sea. That said, I’m not sure how you’d pull off bush camping – the best part of the genre – in a marine battle royale.

Sea of Thieves has two expansions releasing this summer. Cursed Sails releases later this month while Forsaken Shores will be available in September. You can watch an trailer for the expansions in the video above.