Dear Rare / Sea of Thieves Development Team,
I am a long-time dedicated Legend who pre-ordered Sea of Thieves on the exact day it was announced. I have since purchased and fully linked all versions (Xbox, Steam, and Battle.net) to the same Microsoft account to get the best crossplay experience.
After playing for a few years at launch, I took a few years off while new content and bug fixes were added. I was desperately hoping that a proper unified friends system would be one of the improvements during that time. Unfortunately, returning now in 2026, the issue remains:
I have friends playing on Xbox, Steam, and Battle.net.
Because the game still relies almost exclusively on the Xbox Live friends list, I cannot reliably see when my friends are online across different launchers.
Invites require extra steps and often fail to show real-time presence, making it frustrating to play together cross-platform.
The original Xbox + Microsoft PC design made sense in 2018. But with Steam and Battle.net support now long established, this limitation feels outdated.
My question is: Is there a meaningful technical, partnership, business, or infrastructure reason why a true unified in-game friends system — with native friends lists and real-time online status from Steam, Battle.net, and Xbox — has not been added yet?
If feasible, please prioritize implementing native cross-launcher friend integration, including real-time status, easy invites, and in-game name/tag searching. This would remove a major barrier, greatly improve retention for returning players like me, and make the crossplay experience truly seamless.
I truly love Sea of Thieves and want to keep sailing with my full crew for years to come. Understanding any challenges and seeing this quality-of-life improvement would mean a lot.
Thank you for your time and continued work on the game.
Sincerely,
[Lolthissia
Day-One Pirate Pal | Pre-order Supporter
Feedback: Why No Unified Cross-Platform Friends List & Real-Time Online Status in 2026?
@lolthissia doesn't matter if someone is on steam, ms store or battle net they always show up on gamebar? Unless they are appearing offline
Why do players always use AI to make these posts?
Silly as it is, you can tell because they always "mentioned how long they played, talked about how long they stopped playing, and signed off with their name like some business."Anyways... It's 2026, and we have Discord.
If your friends arent also using it.....well that on them.@burnbacon I appreciate you, BurnBacon. I hear where you're coming from and for the most part I absolutely agree...
Also, AI is dopey in its phrasings, but it has its uses for making windbags like me easier to understand...Allow me to answer this in stride~
I'll off you an AI free word salad.
Maybe you'll appreciate that the AI made my original post easier to read:I am absolutely willing to admit I played the beta for this game, dropped in the day it went live, and left for a few years because plainly the game was bare bones early on.
I've returned and left a few times since launch. Due to this leave to raise my infant children, I am in-fact around two years behind and learning the majority of the most recent updates and changes.This is why I am so incredibly aggravated by both the lack of an in-game friends list that is not platform based and/or the assumption that I'm the incompetent one for wanting it.
This game is nearly 10 years old. It is now on basically every major platform and launcher.
I've paid my dues and purchased several of those.
I would like to think, for as much as they advertise "CROSS PLAY" in this title, that the CROSS PLAY would be comprehensive and streamlined in a way that it might show "recent players" and "friends" in a menu in game.....Yes, it is 2026.
And whenever we arent out being abducted by aliens, fighting foreign wars for shady 3 letter agencies, or drowning in whatever misc tinfoil hat headlines the internet decides to throw at us for the day;
we're all in a voice channel on Discord.
Which is exactly why this irks me as much as it does.
We all agree that we're logged in, we all discuss creating a band of rogues, and yet for whatever reason~ WE DONT HAVE THE ABILITY TO SEE EACH OTHER IN GAME TO SEND INVITES? It must be done through each individual platform?Bacon, if you're able to explain to me like I'm a burnt out 37yr old single parent of 2 kids under age 5 exactly how to send cross platform invitations to galley up with my homies to punch skelefaces at 11pm after the kids are asleep when I've been up since 5am, please help me.
I'll pay you to walk my exhausted-mom-is-nearly-dead-tiredass through it.
Seriously.
No joke.
I'm too tired for all this. I just want to pirate in the fleeting moments I'm able to without tiny krakens stealing my controller and mashing my keyboard....As for the AI, I did put my original highly profane post through the AI to make myself less likely to get banned while raging about how ridiculous it is that I'm unable to find the people I'm playing with easily to send crew invites. Seems kinda silly to be worried about why someone is using AI to get their point across, but if you'd like a proper sample of my intellectual and linguistic prowess to satisfy your trollbelly needs, feel free to look me up elsewhere, find me on the seas under this name, or send me a DM for a private epic shanty battle. ;)
xxx,
Thissi
