The Secret Wilds
- Developer: Rare Ltd
- Role: Senior Designer
- Engine: Unreal Engine 4
- Platforms: Windows, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S
- Release: January 19th 2023 – February 2nd 2023
- Genre: Action-adventure
Overview
The Secret Wilds was the 11th limited-time Adventure in Sea of Thieves where players retraced the memories of Captain Briggsy using her enchanted mask to uncover a cure for Tasha’s skeleton curse.
Set in The Wilds region, the experience blended environmental storytelling, constellation based puzzles, and exploration across multiple islands, where players gathered Ancient relics, decoded perspective based star patterns, and reconstructed a mystical amulet.
The event emphasized themes of forgotten knowledge, transformation, and uncertain hope, while gradually revealing Briggsy’s past and the role of Ancient magic in shaping the Sea of Thieves, culminating in a collaborative, story driven journey that rewarded players with unique cosmetic items and deeper insight into the game’s evolving lore.
Through the natural Adventure’s progression, players bring Captain Briggsy back to life through searching the stars and constellations, resulting in an emotionally affecting conclusion.
Contributions
- Led and oversaw design development for The Secret Wilds Adventure, offering vision alignment guidance for designers and content teams.
- Specified and iterated on design details for whole Adventure, including:
Stargazer Title Achievement icon
NPC intros, dialogue, cutscenes, journals, and states
Briggsy Mask functionality (Players can wield and look through mask to see constellation perspective puzzles in the sky)
Constellation Perspective Puzzles (worked with design, narrative, tech art, and concept on the constellation pieces and reveal)
Briggsy’s states of consciousness (Briggsy was a character that was defeated by players in the past. This adventure allows player to view her narrating her memories after completing a constellation. After every reveal, the character gives a museum-like audio narration of her memories. As the players discover more constellations, her phantom like form begins to clear, as she slowly starts making comments that suggest that she’s responding to the player rather than simply auto playing a memory. By the last constellation puzzle, Briggsy has gained fully consciousness. In the end she returns to the world in the flesh, providing players with an emotional tie to their actions of finishing the puzzles)
Event Rewards (Time-Limited Mask Trinket)
- Set up Briggsy’s Bonus memories (Briggsy’s past memories seen on additional islands through the mask)
- Created little Tasha’s drawings for questbook hints
- Worked with and set up reconstruction states of Amulet with Art team.
Wander until the position of the stars reveals the last ancient
constellation which brings Briggsy back to life!