As many of you are aware, the preorder bonus for Sea of Thieves was the exclusive ‘Black Dog Set” which was a full clothing set and saber. Over the course of the weeks to months after the game’s launch, Sea of Thieves hosted livestreams that gave you Ebon Mixpot rewards. These had the same colors as the Black Dog Set. Over the course of the past year I have been collecting every Ebon and Black Dog item. With the recent update, the Mercenary Set is available to everyone; and it is essentially a reskin if the Black Dog Set. There is practically no difference, other than the colors. The “Exclusive Black Dog Set” no longer looks exclusive. Rare had as much creative freedom as they could muster, and chose a reskin?! Everything from the weapons to equipment is pretty much the exact same. There’s not much we can do now, however I would like to point out the laziness and lack of effort that the Rare team put into the Mercenary Set.
Black Dog reskin issues
Both sets have been available since before the game's release, and it was discovered early on that a lot of what Rare did were reskins, which is why after a community uproar, they removed some of them. However, many reskins still exist (admiral/ceremonial admiral, bilge rat/scurvy bilge rat, and sea dog/rogue sea dog clothing sets for example), and now we have numerous incomplete sets as a result of the aforementioned removals.
I'm actually okay with reskins (and hope they re-add the removed items), so long as they also continue use to add lots of variety with new sets.
As a long-time owner of the Mercenary set, I would prefer it if Rare had retained its exclusivity by not giving it out to everyone. It is a good looking set and its rarity was fun while it lasted.
On the other hand I am glad that others now get to enjoy that sweet, sweet green coat.
I hope that the Black Dog set will remain exclusive to those who pre-ordered Sea of Thieves.
As a proud new owner of the Mercenary set, i love it, and have always wanted the Black dog set. But sadly, missed my chances to obtain it.
I agree it is unfair that we now have something that closely mimics your outfit.
There should always be Rare or at least hard to obtain items in games, and to recolor them is not really a good thing to do.
