r/SeaOfRemnants

After playing Sea of Remnants in early access for a few hours, I chatted with the Creative Director behind the title (through a translator) back in January 2026. Dropping the full interview below and the published URL in the comment.

Q: Sea of Remnants provides the option to permanently get rid of an NPC. What will happen if, in the future, the developers decide to add content around that specific NPC?

A: This is a very complicated question. The short answer is, if you kill that NPC, that NPC is gone forever.

But of course, we also have a lot of complicated fundamental design embedded in the system that we call systematic stopping. The systematic stopping mechanism that we have is to have retroactive revival, which means in some occasions, you can choose to revive certain characters so as to satisfy the needs of the story.

Q: Is the loot/reward rate in the real game the same as the one in the demo?

A: Most of the things that you get from the game now would be the same in the future. But there will be some minor tweaking of the artistic look of the product.

Q: Which game engine is the developer using? I was using an i9 with RTX 4080 for the demo, and there were some lags/screen tearing during my playthrough. Will the game be optimized for all kinds of hardware, or will it be more for the high-end ones?

A: The stuttering that you see in terms of the tearing effect of the gameplay is due to the so-called lack of optimization. We are still doing the optimization of the performance and expression of the game. This will be better after we launch the game.

We use a proprietary engine of NetEase. This is based upon the statistical needs of the game, the innovation we require in this game, and also the open-sourced requirement of our gaming design. But of course, the way that we design our game in terms of the style or the texture, the way that we choose to design in that way would have some compatibility issues. This would be waiting for future optimization.

Q: Why choose a turn-based approach to combat for a genre that is more about fast-paced, swashbuckling actions, and why not use turn-based also for the naval combat?

A: We have been internally debating and discussing about the turn-based fight for the major encounter, but not for the non-turn-based combat like the naval combat - we have been discussing this internally vehemently. We finally decided that doing so would be the best embodiment of the ethos of the game.

It’s not very easy to have a turn-based combat system in a open world game. But the original intent was to have it in a turn-based situation, and the reason is because we believe we have incorporated lots of skills and skill combinations in our design. So we believe that only when we have this turn-based kind of system can we have so many skills/skill combinations in place.

But when you have sea battles or cannon battles, you need to have a sense of emotion, a sense of realness. That’s the reason why we gave them real battles instead of turn-based so that the users can feel the immediacy of the fighting.

Q: In Sea of Remnants, we have certain similarities with other games or franchises: like the compass that guides you is similar to that of Jack Sparrow’s in Pirates of the Carribean and the character of RS is similar to Cyberpunk Edgerunner’s Rebecca. Also, anybody who plays Sea of Remnants will be reminded of Sea of Thieves. So, how does the studio manage to make its product different from what already exists?

A: To give you an example of our own unique feature in terms of our worldview, if you remember, we have a hamster god. The hamster god is to whom we pray, even when we roll the dice. This is a god-story setting that is quite unique and of its own kind because we did not adopt any other culture’s god, for example, the god of luck from the Greek mythology, or any other gods.

If we take any reference from another god, we will have to follow their culture, storyline, and destiny as well. This actually makes sure we have a very independent and unique worldview of our own.

Q: Will Sea of Remnants have a China-exclusive phase before it globally rolls out or will it launch everywhere altogether?

A: In terms of the date of release, we are going to notify you later because we have the specific department doing that.

Q: Has NetEase provided inputs or asked for implementations in Sea of Remnants’ development or has it entirely been left to the dev team?

A: We have a very free development ideology in terms of the design. Everything you see now is actually designed by us. We have a very good, open-minded environment for designing. NetEase has a supervisory role but not any intervention in terms of creation and artistic design.

Q: In its current state, Sea of Remnants seems to face quite a bit of localization issues. Is this something the team is actively tackling right now or will it be more of a priority nearer to the launch?

A: We have different stages for different pipelines, which means that at a certain stage, we are doing the calibration of languages and translation. We call this the LOQ in terms of the level of development.

In this conversation with the Lead Artist behind the game from January 2026, I went over the visual language and design choices of Sea of Remnants.

Q: Outside of the in-game story reason, how and why did the development team come across the idea of puppets as the characters’ base model?

A: When the project started, we decided to make a pirate-themed game. Joker Studio had a big success with Identity V’s doll characters, so we really wanted to have this consistency and heritage of the visual language. That’s why we are looking for materials for different doll designs.

We thought about a ceramic doll or a doll made of wood, which is a puppet. We just felt that a puppet is a very good match for the era of pirates, because you have a lot of ships that are made of wood.

Q: RS’ desgin language and behavioral nuances seem to be a mix of Harley Quinn from Batman and Rebecca from Cyberpunk Edgerunners. Is there any inspiration or is that entirely coincidental?

A: At an early stage of the RS design, we did not design her as a very outgoing person. She was originally to be a very quiet girl, but with the progression of the development, we really wanted this character to reflect more traits of pirates and we wanted this character to guide and lead the players into the world of pirates. During this process, our script has also gone through major iterations.

That is why in the end, we decided that we will have this girl who is very energetic, very robust, and very outgoing. Our Producer is extremely invested in the design of RS. With the upgrading of the game, you will be able to see more aspects of these characters. For now, my mouth is shut. What you see now is just a fraction of her personality.

Q: The design theme of Sea of Remnant’s world seems to be a nicely balanced blend of realism, vibrant color, almost like a painting, and a touch of humor. How did you balance this realism and artistic stylization?

A: At the beginning, we started to break down what makes pirates unique, and we identified that they are untamed, they are unruly, and they have this rebellious spirit. Based on that, we actually added some layer of street culture, graffiti, and weird decorations to the design. Technology-wise, we do a lot of integration of 2D+3D. You can have a 2D flat decoration as a headpiece on a 3D character.

But we also want to bring that sense of realism to the players. So that’s why, for example, in the design of Orbtopia, we drew inspiration from the old town of Havana. In this old town area, you will find a lot of block-shaped architecture, bright colored facades, and floor-to-ceiling arch doors.

Also, when the pirates came, they used their own idea to renovate the city. For example, they can bring part of the mast on the ship or some wood panels off the deck and build their own dwellings in the city. Therefore, gradually changing how the city looks.

On the texturing or the mapping of the characters, you can also see a lot of graffiti and handbrush elements applied, but in terms of the light and the shadow effect, we wanted to go for a more realistic approach. For example, you will see a very real-life-like reflection on the water's surface.

Q: What, in your words, would Sea of Remnants’ visual identity be and what emotions did you want to convey? Did Sea of Remnant’s visual identity remain the same as it was originally conceived, or were there tweaks and changes as the development proceeded?

A: Both Identity V and Sea of Remnants are stories that are based on the journey of memories. Even though Sea of Remnants has a pirate theme, the story is still about memories. And because memory is intangible, it is very difficult to visualize. That’s why we used the rose color to represent memory.

Also, when you look at the ocean current among different islands that serves as a fast track, you will see different kinds of colors mixed with the memory’s rose color. This represents other aspects of different characters’ memory - it could be strength, agility, or something relevant to their attributes.

And there is a very strong personal emotion involved by our Producer. Whether it’s the storyline or artistic style, he felt the rose color is nice for memory and is also romantic. For our main visual identity, it will be the puppet and, like the lemon-yellow color and blue circuit board of Cyberpunk 2077 for players to remember it by, the magenta rose color can be similar for Sea of Remnants.

Q: Since so much of the game’s crux revolves around intangible things like memory, was it difficult as an artist to convey that while making sure that the gameplay is fun to look at, having a healthy balance between the two?

A: It’s the artstyle team’s basic capability to visualize the abstract stuff; it’s something that we have to deal with. It’s not only the art team’s work; our script team and our creative director are also constantly working on this issue.

For example, since our characters are puppets, how can puppets grow stronger? Do we change the material of the wood? Can the puppet lose or change a limb? If the enhancement of the attributes can be consistent with our style, these are always on our minds.

On one hand, we want to adhere to a lot of settings, but on the other hand, we really want to balance the player’s understanding of the settings.

Q: With 400+ NPCs to work with, how does the team ensure that there’s no 1:1 copy roaming about? Did the team use the help of AI in this process?

A: We did not use AI for the development of Sea of Remnants’ NPCs. While we were designing the NPCs, it was a massive, massive workload. The production capacity and schedule back then did not allow us to make and design every NPC separately. So what we did was to break them into different models or asset bases.

You have an asset base for your features, for your features, for your hairstyles - and then we would patch and match. Sometimes the results will be really awful and we will have to delete them.

Q: What is your favorite part of Sea of Remnants’ world from the perspective of an artist? What was the most difficult to get right?

A: First of all, as an artist, I love every part of the game. I do not say this as flattery, but it’s very honest because it is a project that we have committed to so much. It’s actually a very painful process doing this huge project that comes as a big challenge. There are challenges such as scale production, coordination among different teams and units, and there are often challenges of communication.

It is very difficult to say what the biggest challenge was because it varies depending on which stage you are in. Maybe four years ago, our biggest headache was how to create this massive open world - was it too big a world that our scale production capacity could not catch up to? Maybe last year, we were concerned about whether our assets could support continuous optimisation.

Upto now, we have managed to overcome the lion’s share of the difficulties and problems. At least, it is better than it was before. Of course, there are still bugs here and there, but it still comforts us that we have come so far. We will continue the journey.

Thanks

I play a LOT of gacha games but found out about this one by accident a few months ago while scrolling thru reddit. Why no big gacha CCs are talking about it? The game looks AMAZING. Also I hate the fact it will be released for CN first, since I play r1999 and persona gacha, and it sucks when you play global and have to wait for CN content to arrive or speed to catch up. Anyways, is there an estimated date for global PC users? I'm so anxious to play it. Hope the company pay some CCs to promote this game