The "Make it Loud" trailer at Summer Game Fest 2026 introduced six fleet groups, and they are the clearest sign of how the game's structure works. Each fleet has a distinct identity, and companions are recruited from these groups — including the ones you have no allegiance to.
Your starting point. Drift Bottle is where a puppetfolk sailor adrift without memories begins, and it is the most modest of the six. Whatever you assemble later, this is the hull you begin with, and the game's story is the story of how far it travels.
Ranbo is characterised as Orbtopia's wildest rock stars — the faction that turns the pirate city into a stage. Where other fleets are defined by how they sail, Ranbo is defined by how they are perceived. If you want to understand what Orbtopia does to the people in it, Ranbo is where that shows up most clearly.
The Black Baron fleet enjoys the romance and riches of the sea with elegance and dignity. It is the faction with a self-image, and the contrast with its rivals is the point — where Ranbo is loud and the Wanderer is restless, the Black Baron is composed. A crew drawn from them brings a particular set of attitudes to a voyage.
Dawnbreaker is a fleet led by an enigmatic figure, and it carries an unusual double life: the name is also the title of the game's closed beta. A faction led by someone the game will not explain, doubling as the name of the test that first brought the game to consoles, makes Dawnbreaker the faction the surrounding narrative is most clearly built around.
The Fireworks Wanderer is a wandering fleet — the one defined by motion rather than by territory or identity. In a game where the sea itself is the primary antagonist, a fleet whose defining trait is constant travel is an interesting counterpoint to the settled city of Orbtopia and the self-possessed Black Baron.
The Illusion Troupe is the last of the six, and the name does the describing: a fleet of performers, where what a crew shows you and what it is may not be the same thing. For a game carrying psychological horror as a listed tag, a faction built around deception is a deliberate piece of design. The full public detail on each faction is still thin — the trailer introduced them and the closed beta is the first chance to see them in play — so this page is a structured summary rather than a complete dossier.