News, updates and info from the Sea of Thieves.

Talk Like a Pirate Day: Twitch Drops

Watch a Twitch stream, get some cannons! Tidbits
Talk Like a Pirate Day is arrrrrrrrrrrlmost upon us. To celebrate, Sea of Thieves is partnering with Twitch to give away these spiffy Obsidian Cannons! (We knew they were coming eventually). It’s easy to get these lovely boom-shooters. Here’s how: Head to seaofthieves.com/twitch-drops and link your Sea of Thieves account with your Twitch account. Watch any of the listed streams on Thursday 19th of September (10am BST on September 19th until 10am BST on September 20th) for at least 30 minutes. TIP: You can watch the official weekly Sea of Thieves stream with Captain Falcore as part of the promotion….

Sightings: Ancient Skeletons

Shoot them quick! Tidbits
As part of the introduction of the Pirate Emporium, Rare also brought a new enemy to the game – the Ancient Skeleton. As you explore the world in both Adventure and Arena, you’ll have a rare chance of encountering this beastie. He’ll dig out of the ground with a flourish and make a run for it. If you can capture him, you – and your crew – will earn some Ancient Coin (Rare’s in-game currency available to buy with real money). Now, we’re starting to see live encounters from the game. Reddit user TruEdits killed on on Shipwreck Bay with…

Join the Creator Crew

Rare launches a suite of tools and assets for Creators. News
As promised in a Dev Update video a couple of weeks ago, Sea of Thieves has officially launched its Creator Crew program. The team explained their motivation for rolling out this new program, as well as the details of the program itself, in a news post on the Sea of Thieves site. Since launch, 593,000 players have livestreamed the game, with hundreds of thousands more sharing content across Xbox Live, social media or YouTube. The creativity, humour and storytelling ability shown by our creators has been an inspiration to us, and they’ve played a huge role in making Sea of Thieves the…

Release Notes – 2.0.7

Smugglers Fortune! Pets! Pirate Emporium! More! Regular Releases
[Link] In addition to new Voyages, updates and general improvements, Smuggler’s Fortune ushers in the Pirate Emporium, where players can get their hooks on a feathery or furry personal friend alongside new emotes and ship cosmetics. With the opening of Duke’s Black Market too, Smuggler’s Fortune promises plenty of opportunities to further personalise your pirate adventures. SMUGGLER’S FORTUNE Following the delivery of Reaper’s Chests to Duke during Dark Relics, he’s now managed to crack open the chests and reap the valuable items inside. Unfortunately, alongside all the treasures, it turns out that many of the Reaper’s Chests simply contained bones, rags and shards that…

Behind the Scenes: The Pirate Emporium

Exchange real coins for Ancient Coins. Behind the Scenes Videos
In this Behind the Scenes video Jon McFarlane is joined by Joe Neate to discuss the upcoming addition of The Pirate Emporium in Sea of Thieves. Watch the video above for the full run down. As always, if you don’t have time to watch the video we’ve included a full summary below. The Pirate Emporium The Pirate Emporium is an additional revenue stream to help the continual development of Sea of Thieves. The core ideas behind the Emporium are to “never sell power”, no separation of players, completely optional, and no loot boxes or random chance items. To make purchases…

Behind the Scenes: Pets

Who’s a good monkey? Behind the Scenes Videos
In this Behind the Scenes video Jon McFarlane is joined by Mike Chapman and Josh Mitchell to discuss the upcoming addition of Pets in Sea of Thieves. Watch the video above for the full run down. As always, if you don’t have time to watch the video we’ve included a full summary below. Mike loved the idea that pets could “become a sidekick” and “feel like another member of the crew”. At launch the available pets will be Monkeys (Capuchins & Barbarys) and Parrots (Macaws & Parakeets). Pets can be named and dressed in outfits, and each breed of pet will have…

Official Adventure Q&A

Mike Chapman, Joe Neate and Ryan Stevenson answer questions from the community. Roundups
On Monday the Sea of Thieves community team hosted a Q&A with Joe (EP), Mike (Design Director) and Ryan (Art Director). I’ve collected all of the answered questions below, lightly edited. You should note that a small handful of questions were answered with jokes, or in a decidedly ambiguous fashion – these have been omitted from this roundup, but you can go looking for them here.     Q: Are there any secrets in the game that seemingly no one has found? Mike: There are definitely dots to connect that no one has realised yet.   Q: Could setting bounties…

Duke’s Black Market

Save your doubloons. News
Drew Stevens, a senior producer on Sea of Thieves, has been encouraging Redditors to save their doubloons for some time now. [The Reaper’s Chest will be] our first repeatable reward that delivers Doubloons! It’s almost like you should be saving up for something… Now we know how that will broadly shake out. On this week’s Dev Update, Joe Neate filled us in on Duke’s Black Market, which will arrive in the game with the September update. Duke will sell new cosmetics, as well as variations on previously time-limited sets, for doubloons. Variations of outpost items (the ones that are permanent…

Fire, exclamation mark

Noted leaker James “BIGsheep” Thomas spills the beans again. Tidbits
Attentive Sea of Thieves watchers will know Rare developer, James “BIGsheep” Thomas, as the man whose belligerence gave us mermaid gems, and who also accidentally confirmed parrots as pets on a live stream that time. Well, pirates, he’s done it again. On this week’s weekly stream, James glanced at the chat, and then spilled the beans: I think the biggest thing we’ve announced that’s coming soon is fire Andy Preston quickly looked at him, saying “Is that announced yet?” James: “Are you kidding me?” The reactions are priceless. Look out it's happened again. 🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/uJb3z8XeV6 — Sea of News 🏴‍☠️📜🎣…

This… is… Sparta!

Getting the full Spartan ship set has never been easier. News
In June, Rare revealed the Spartan ship set as part of E3. Obtaining the set was as easy as playing Sea of Thieves at least once over a few days. And now it’s back, this time with cannons, capstan and wheel in tow! Obtaining the set is, once again, a walk in the park: set sail on the seas any time from August 20th-24th, either Adventure or Arena. Play Sea of Thieves at any time during Gamescom next week (August 20th-24th) to earn the complete @Halo Spartan Ship Set! Already have the items from E3? This will add the wheel,…

Dev Update (video)

The August release, Dark Relics, and a little bit more. Dev Update Videos
Hooray, this month’s release is here! Here’s a summary of all of Joe’s utterances: Monthly Updates Moving forward, the game update will happen on the 2nd Wednesday of every month (meaning the next update will be the 11th of September). With this in mind, players will know when to expect new content and voyages, as well as being aware of the end dates of each event. Dark Relics The Dark Relics voyages, commendations and rewards are all time-limited. The Reapers Chest This chest will appear around the world, signalled by glowing, swirling lights. When you bring it aboard, all other…

Release Notes – 2.0.6

Dark Relics! Mercenary Releases
[Link] Dark Relics Duke has been asked for help by the Order of Souls! Despite boosting their arsenal with gunpowder kegs last month, the Order found themselves raided by a nefarious crew of skeletons who stole a set of powerful artefacts known as Dark Relics, spiriting them away to far-flung corners of the sea. The Order didn’t have time to determine the full extent of these Relics’ mystical properties, but they could prove to be incredibly dangerous in the wrong hands… As if that wasn’t enough, shipments of a mysterious new chest emblazoned with the Reaper’s Mark are now turning…

Official Tall Tales Q&A

Mike Chapman and Andy Preston answer questions from the community. Roundups
On Wednesday the Sea of Thieves community team hosted a Q&A with the Tall Tales design team. I’ve collected all of the answered questions below, lightly edited. You should note that a small handful of questions were answered only with smiley faces – these have been omitted from this roundup due to their overly ambiguous nature, but you can go looking for them here. I’ve arranged the answers by topic for your convenience: Tease + future content Tall Tales (questions, comments, ideas) Developing Tall Tales Lore     Tease + future content   Q. Has the team considered adding elements…

Dev update (video)

A huge cache of upcoming features! Dev Update Videos
In a huge dev update, Joe Neate takes us through a raft of upcoming features. As always, it’s a great idea to watch the full video above. For reference, heres a full summary: Digital Business strategy – AKA in-game purchases Rare have been upfront about pets being paid additions to the game right from launch. Now, with pets coming to testing soon, Joe has confirmed Sea of Thieves’ broad monetisation strategy. The stated principles for digital purchases are: No power advantage Nothing that will “separate players” Completely optional Know what you’re buying – no loot boxes. Pets will be hitting…

Hit registration is being worked on

Yes, it’s an issue. Yes, it’s being improved. But there’s “no silver bullet”. Roundups
Update – 14 July 2019: Hit reg improvements are now in testing with Insiders. Hey! We have our Hit Reg improvements in Insiders right now, jump in and come hep us test out the latest improvements! Joe describes the improvements as “significant” and “super promising”. Original post: Longtime players of Sea of Thieves know that hit registration in the game has always been a bit patchy. You shoot, get the hitmarker, but no damage is done. This kind of thing happens a lot in online games, but many feel that Sea of Thieves can be worse than most. The arrival…