Rare Retires Sea of Thieves Boatswain Tier After Misconduct Scandal

Rare scrapped the entire Boatswain tier of its Sea of Thieves Partner Program after a content creator at that level was accused of inappropriate conduct involving minors, per Game Rant's reporting. The studio banned the individual, who then deleted their socials, and issued a May 14 statement promising to "evolve its processes and policies about player safety." Players on the subreddit have been pulling apart the wording line-by-line — with some redditors calling the language AI-generated — and arguing that retiring a tier rather than re-vetting the program is the path of least legal exposure. The harder question this raises for every first-party creator program in the industry: who vetted these people in the first place, and what does the rest of the Partner roster look like under the same scrutiny?