adminSea of Remnants is a pirate-themed role-playing game that offers a view into Joker Studio’s creative process and NetEase’s approach to building free-to-play games for a global audience. Developed by the team behind Identity V, the project combines a large sea-faring adventure with a lively home hub, while also raising questions about character design, merchandising and the role of AI in game development.
Image credit: Joker Studio/NetEase
Sea of Remnants and NetEase’s studio environment
Joker Studio began work on Sea of Remnants in October 2019, shortly after Identity V launched. The game was nearing beta after almost seven years of development when the studio was visited at NetEase’s campus in Hangzhou, China. The campus is part of a wider headquarters expansion and houses teams from different areas of the company.
Two nearby campuses each accommodate close to 10,000 employees. Staff work on-site, and the facilities include shared work areas, a gym, basketball and badminton courts, and a canteen. Employees also have access to services connected to NetEase’s other businesses, including on-site delivery for items ordered through its e-commerce platforms.
Creative director Alfie, a requested alias used for the interview, described shared spaces as helpful for collaboration and informal discussion. For readers considering how a large studio operates, this setup illustrates one approach: placing different teams and everyday amenities together to encourage regular interaction.
Alfie, creative director for Sea of Remnants. Image credit: Joker Studio/NetEase
A pirate RPG with two distinct sides
The team describes Sea of Remnants as having two connected parts. Orbtopia is a populated town with hundreds of characters and activities, including drinking challenges, mahjong and rhythm-based minigames. Beyond the town, players can explore an open sea, solve puzzles, collect loot, take part in turn-based combat and investigate mysteries.
The game’s characters are wooden puppets rather than human pirates. Lead artist Kairos said the team wanted a fresh take on pirate imagery, drawing on both historical references and popular entertainment. The aim was to evoke pirates of the 16th and 17th centuries while giving the characters a contemporary style.
Joker Studio has worked with Japanese artists Takayuki Takeya and Ryu Oyama, as well as Ashley Wood, who previously collaborated with the studio on Identity V. These influences contribute to the game’s distinctive visual direction. A practical consideration for players is that its free-to-play structure includes gacha mechanics, so it is worth checking how optional purchases work before spending.
Sea of Remnants features wooden puppet characters. Image credit: Joker Studio/NetEase
Building interest beyond the game
In China, popular game characters can extend into physical merchandise, pop-up shops, food and drink collaborations, and collectible blind boxes. These sealed packages contain mystery items, making the surprise part of the collecting experience.
One estimate put China’s blind-box market at 10.1 billion yuan ($1.4 billion) in 2020, with a forecast of 150 billion yuan ($20.7 billion) by 2025. These figures were projections reported at the time, rather than confirmation of the market’s eventual size. The broader strategy reflects how games can build communities and revenue through experiences outside the screen.
Joker Studio drew on its work on Identity V to understand how characters and collaborations can connect with players. Kairos said the team learned which designs resonated with audiences in and beyond the game, and how to work with companies in other industries. Characters with recognizable struggles and personal histories may also appeal to fans who prefer to support a game through merchandise rather than in-game purchases.
The studio said its immediate priority was making Sea of Remnants a strong game, while events and merchandise remained possible areas for future expansion if the title succeeds. For players, this distinction matters: physical products and collaborations are potential extensions, not a substitute for evaluating the game itself.
Joker Studio drew on international influences for Sea of Remnants’ character designs. Image credit: Joker Studio/NetEase
What the studio says about AI
NetEase operates in several fields, including games, e-commerce, food and drink, cloud music, online services and AI. NetEase Game Labs, the company’s AI-focused division, appears in Sea of Remnants’ opening credits. However, Joker Studio said generative AI was not used to create the game’s current design work.
Alfie explained that the studio had experimented with AI and considered possible uses, including in gameplay, but viewed game production as a complex process with specialized stages. The team did not identify a development pipeline that AI had replaced in the project. This account reflects the studio’s statements about Sea of Remnants at the time of the interview.
Sea of Remnants combines open-world exploration and battles with a hub full of characters and minigames. Image credit: Joker Studio/NetEase
Why Sea of Remnants matters
Sea of Remnants brings together a broad open world, ship-based encounters, a character-filled town and a free-to-play model. Its development also shows how a game can be designed with international audiences and potential real-world extensions in mind, while the studio says its main focus remains the player experience.
For anyone following Sea of Remnants, the key details to watch are how its beta develops, how the game balances optional purchases with core play, and whether its characters and world grow beyond the screen. The project offers a snapshot of Joker Studio’s ambitions and of the wider possibilities NetEase sees for games designed to travel across markets.
Disclosure: NetEase paid for the author’s travel and accommodation for the visit to Joker Studio.
