Activision never bought Rare. Microsoft has owned both since 2023. They reshuffled Xbox, so now Rare—the studio behind Sea of Thieves and its free sailing mode since 2018—reports directly to Activision. That’s the Call of Duty crew.

Now, the real issue is that Rare just lost access to its own Helm. And honestly, that’s the version of the story that should worry you.

Sit back, relax, and let’s dive.

This isn’t some doom-and-gloom rant or a hit piece on Activision. Activision’s got a pretty predictable playbook, and that’s why I’m talking about it. Sea of Thieves has three possible paths, and I’ll show you the warning signs so you know what’s coming. Once you’ve spotted them three times, you can’t unsee them. These signs reveal exactly what’s next for the game.

You know all my guides focus on predicting the enemy and reading their moves so we don’t get blindsided.

Online, people drop comments like, “Rare in the Call of Duty mines by Christmas.” That could happen, but it’s not set in stone. Activision always follows a pattern I call MMR—not Matchmaking Rating, but Milk, Mine, and Remake.

Sea of Thieves is about to fit into one of these three buckets.

1. The “Milk”

Let’s start with “Milk,” because it’s their most famous move.

• Guitar Hero: Activision grabbed it in 2006. Guitar Hero 3 blew up in 2007—a huge hit. In 2009 alone, they pumped out six titles: Guitar Hero 5, Metallica, Van Halen, Smash Hits, Band Hero, and DJ Hero. A game everyone loved turned into just another box on a shelf. By 2011, the franchise was dead. They tried to reboot it in 2015, but by 2018, they'd shut down the servers.
• Skylanders: Same story, just faster. They kicked off the toys-to-life trend in 2011. Six games over six years, and then the whole market disappeared.
• Tony Hawk: Started in 1999, then evolved into those goofy plastic skateboard games nobody wanted, culminating in Pro Skater 5 in 2015—probably the worst thing to ever carry that name.

Milking doesn’t kill games on its own; Activision’s decisions do. They milk a game dry as long as it keeps making money—until it doesn’t. That “golden goose” only lasts about four years. When an IP runs dry, they’re fine letting it die. These franchises weren’t failures; they simply ran out of juice.

2. The “Mine”

Next up is “Mine,” which actually fits Rare’s situation quite well.

• Bungie: Eight years under Activision, starting in 2010 with Destiny. Nine years of public drama about release schedules and monetization. It was always a fight between creativity and Activision’s structure. They split in 2019, and Bungie walked away with their IP.
• Blizzard: Merged in 2008. Slowly, you saw them tilt toward the parent company’s interests: Warcraft 3 Reforged, Diablo Immortal, Overwatch 2 scrapping its main PvE mode. Then came Diablo 4, which was excellent—they finally found the gem in the dirt.

The Call of Duty Mines

Here’s the quieter version of the Mine. Studios with their own games and vibes become Call of Duty support teams. They aren’t fired or shut down—just reassigned to work on what earns the most money.

• Raven used to make Jedi Outcast.
• High Moon made Deadpool.
• Beenox worked on Spider-Man.
• Toys for Bob made Skylanders and Crash Bandicoot.

Now, all these teams are part of the Call of Duty machine. (Toys for Bob eventually escaped and went indie, but not before enduring the mines.) That’s the fear I keep seeing in the Sea of Thieves community, and it’s totally fair.

3. The “Remake”

When Activision actually treats an old game as a legit product to do right—not just a cash cow—they nail it.

• Crash Bandicoot: N. Sane Trilogy (2017)
• Spyro Reignited (2018)
• Tony Hawk 1 and 2 (2020)

Each one is a great remake that sold insanely well. But here’s the bummer ending: Vicarious Visions, which made the Crash and Tony Hawk remakes, got folded into Blizzard and lost its name.

So that’s the cycle: Milk the hit, Mine the studio, dig up remakes. Now the only question is which one Rare gets.

Zooming Out: The Xbox Restructure

Let’s look at the bigger picture. Asha Sharma became Xbox CEO in February. She came from Microsoft’s AI side. It’s easy to pick a villain, but let’s approach this carefully.

She’s made some popular moves, like cutting Game Pass prices in April, and she admitted Xbox doesn’t spend enough time with developers or gamers. She plans to grow the business again by 2027.

But she also signed off on the biggest Xbox restructure ever:

• Over 3,000 jobs cut this year.
• Four studios shut down (including Ninja Theory).
• On September 22nd, another 268 jobs gone. Activision took over Halo, Obsidian folded into Bethesda, and Rare landed under Activision.

Why? Xbox revenue dropped by $1.7 billion this year—the first decline since they bought Activision. She stated that over 200 million new players showed up, but the business didn’t keep up. Her goal is to restore margins by next year and beat them by 2030.

Everything Rare faces now stems from a CEO who’s publicly promised profit by 2030.

Where is Rare Really At?

If you crunch the numbers, it looks rough. Everwild was canceled last year. Some devs moved to Sea of Thieves; some got laid off. After Activision took over, Activision cut Rare’s operations team.

From the outside, Rare looks like a one-game studio, with other projects now needing Activision’s blessing to even exist. The first real sign of what’s coming? Whether Rare gets approved for anything besides more Sea of Thieves. That’s your greenlight.

I’m not psychic, but I know patterns. I see three possible futures:

Future 1: Maintenance Mode (The Milk)

Sea of Thieves keeps running because the Emporium makes money. Seasons get thinner, the best talent drifts away to whatever Activision cares about, and nothing new gets greenlit. This is already happening with Custom Seas and maintenance mode handing control to the players.

• The Signal: Keep an eye on the season schedule and see if gaps get longer and quieter.

Future 2: The Mines

The game survives, maybe even improves. Battle pass discipline tightens with a store managed by the Call of Duty team. More profit per pirate, less charm.

• The Signal: Watch how pricing changes over the next two seasons. That’s where it shows up first.

Future 3: The Remake

Rare’s got a massive vault: Banjo-Kazooie, Perfect Dark, Conker, Viva Piñata. Activision consistently nails nostalgia projects. A CEO needing fast growth with high-nostalgia remakes waiting in the vault? It’s logical to say yes.

• The Signal: A new Rare project gets announced—probably a remake of a classic legend—while Sea of Thieves hangs out in maintenance mode.

So which future do you actually see? And if it’s The Remake, which Rare game should come out of the vault first?

Thank you for reading