If you've always wanted to sail the seven seas with the developers of Sea of Thieves, you might have done already, but you wouldn't know it. Fortunately, in the future, you will, as the Rare developers will now be sailing under specific colors so you can see them coming.
The purpose of that is not so that you feel unfairly defeated should they sink you, but so that you know you're taking on a rarified crew within those treacherous Caribbean waters. The sign you're looking out for is a navy-blue sail with a large, golden Rare logo on it. You'll know it when you see it.
As it stands there isn't any kind of reward for hunting down a Rare developer. But there should be. Perhaps before long you'll be able to earn some kind of cosmetic banner to let everyone know how many of the dastardly rascals you've shot into the deep blue below. Still, being able to confirm that that's who you're killing should net you some bragging rights if you can grab a screenshot of the event and no doubt streamers will have a lot of fun going on the hunt for Rare developer scalps to harvest.
As PCGamesN points out, this minor update comes after the fixing of major server problems the game experienced during the mass influx of new players shortly after launch. What will follow though is much more exciting, including the addition of private games for friends to play alone, without the threat of PvP pirates (or Rare developers) to be concerned with. There are also new anti-hacking fixes coming soon, which should help cut back on the cheaters that have swarmed the game in recent weeks.