Sea of Remnants is an upcoming free-to-play pirate adventure game published by NetEase and developed by Joker Studios. It’s set to launch on PS5, PC, and mobile in 2026, but I recently got to play the opening hours of an early in development version. While I still have a ton of questions, the core gameplay and personality of Seas of Remnants have made me much more excited for it.
A silly pirate adventure
The world of Sea of Remnants is populated by colorful puppet-like people. You play as a sailor who has lost all of his memories, washed ashore with a mysterious woman in a coma. An identical-looking woman named Rosie also appears in town at the same time, who joins your crew to help solve this mystery, and maybe find some treasure along the way.
The tone of Sea of Remnants feels heavily inspired by anime and cartoons, both in the way characters are written and the way everyone moves through the world. Characters feel straight out of anime, with Rosie, the NPC I spent the most time within the demo, having the energy of the loud and silly character type, that is a bit aggressive but has a soft side, almost dipping into manic pixie dream girl territory. It works here, though, because the player character is also a bit of a bumbling idiot, and the world features a ton of slapstick comedy. While the dialogue and voicing acting wasn’t final, the tone is definitely a silly pirate adventure.
I had limited options when it came to customizing my character due to it being a demo, but the paint splashed facial features and clothing show just how colorful this pirate world will be.
Turn-based combat, real time naval combat
Sea of Remnants has an interesting mix of turn-based combat and real-time naval combat. To start with the turn-based combat, the special mechanic here is a boosted attack system, similar to Octopath Traveler, where you gain a boost point if you use an attack without using one, but you can use them to deal extra damage. The twist is that each point rolls a die, which not only boosts the attack but also rolls a number. To attack an enemy’s weakness and gain an extra turn, a number will be placed on the enemy, and your roll has to be higher, creating a nice mix of wanting to maximize your boosts, but also not wanting to roll a lower number.
There are also special attacks that each character has, which you build a meter to use. In the demo, these were just boosted versions of the normal attacks, but there were also several unused slots that I never got more skills for, but they seem like there will be.
Another aspect of this combat is your party. Most of the demo, I only had Rosie and my character, but more were given to me right before the demo ended. Each character had a unique name and abilities, and it seems like there is a nice spread of classes and characters available. NetEase has not revealed what the monetization for Sea of Remnants is just yet, but as someone who has played a few gacha games like Genshin Impact, it seemed primed for character rolls.
The naval combat was a nice surprise, opting for a real time system, where you have to steer your ship and aim your cannon shots at the enemy. My opponent was a gorilla I had defeated in turn-based combat, shooting at me. I was able to get critical hits by hitting it directly instead of the ship. It has a more arcade feel, where I could quickly turn my ship and fire my cannons, and it felt quite smooth, although I only got to do the single battle.
What’s the narrative here, and how does the free-to-play model work
There are two aspects here that I didn’t learn too much about during the demo. The first is the narrative, which I did get a taste of, but considering this is a free-to-play game, I’m not sure how much story will be available at launch, and how involved it truly will be.
The other part is the free-to-play aspect. At the moment, NetEase has not said how this game will be monetized, and outside of new party members potentially being part of that, those were the only parts that seem possibly connected to that. Regardless, the turn-based combat and silly pirate adventure aspects of Sea of Remnants have me interested enough to check it out when it launches as a free-to-play game on PS5, PC, and mobile in 2026.
