News, updates and info from the Sea of Thieves.
News

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,…

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…

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…

Sea of Tease Roundup

Reconnect, emotes, pets and more. Tidbits
Sea of Thieves Executive Producer, Drew Stevens, is the most active dev on Reddit – even though many more of the team seem to be heavy lurkers. Drew – aka Sonicbob – usually tends to be most active in the period after game updates. After the release of Black Powder Stashes, he’s dropped in to reply to a few questions and comments. It’s been a while since we’ve had any real “Sea of Tease” from the devs, but there’s a small handful of tidbits here: A reconnect feature is in development A common complaint, especially among solo pirates, is that…

Twitch Rivals: Sea of Thieves

Watch the event across two days to get the Obsidian ship livery! News
Sea of Thieves has partnered with Twitch to present “Rivals“, a two day Arena competition with $100,000 in prizes up for grabs! Taking place from July 23rd-24th 2019, the Twitch Rivals Sea of Thieves Showdown is a series of four distinct contests starring some of the world’s best-known streamers and Sea of Thieves Arena players, each battling for a share of a true pirate fortune: $100,000 in prize money. Cannons will roar, blades will sing and cutting remarks will almost certainly be made during this no-holds-barred Arena encounter, so be sure to tune in and catch the mayhem live on Twitch for a chance…

The Hunter’s Call Gold and Rep will be increasing soon

Expect this to land on July 17th. News
If you’ve been selling endless Splashtails to Merrick for the last two months for an absolute pittance, you now have something to look forward to. Lead Designer, Shelley Preston, has revealed on Twitter that an increase to gold and reputation is coming to the Hunter’s Call Trading company in Sea of Thieves. Well, good news Hunters! I’ve had a long chat with Merrick and all those Ruby Splashtails you’ve been delivering have given The Hunter’s Call the capital to give out greater Gold and Reputation rewards. Coming soon to a Seapost near you! 🐟🐠🐡🐟🐠🐡🐬🐟🐡🐬🐠 — Shelley Preston (@residentveg) July 8,…

Official Arena Dev Q&A

Hit reg! Cross play! Cosmetics! Etc! Roundups
On Wednesday the Sea of Thieves community team hosted a Q&A with some of the Arena leadership team. You can read the whole thing here, but to keep things nice and simple we’ve summarised the discussion below.   Q: When are we going to be able to play with sloops and brigs in the Arena? Shelley: We want to do this! In fact they’re currently in the Insider build for experimentation. We are working towards finding the right approach for adding all the ship types into Arena whilst creating a fair and level competitive playing field.   Q: Crossplay, the Opt…

A spartan surprise

Play Sea of Thieves before June 15th to nab the cosmetics. News
As part of his Inside Xbox appearance, Joe Neate revealed an exclusive cosmetic reward to celebrate E3. Play Sea of Thieves any time from June 10th till June 15th to receive the Spartan ship livery, sails, flag and figure head for free! Update: The Sea of Thieves twitter account answered some commonly asked questions about the Spartan set: To answer your Spartan Ship Set questions: To earn the set you need to play #SeaOfThieves between now and 23:59 BST on Saturday.| You can play either Adventure or The Arena to qualify. We'll add the set to your account within 72…

Sea of Thieves hits 8.4 million pirates

With a huge boost coming from the Anniversary Update. News
On today’s Inside Xbox from E3, Joe Neate made an appearance to chat with Major Nelson about Sea of Thieves. As part of the show, Joe announced that the game has now had 8.4 million unique players. He also mentioned that over 2 million unique players have played the game in the time since the Anniversary Update. Here is a summary of all the announced player milestones: 1 million players was reached in 48 hours 2 million players was reached in 1 week 4 million players was announced in June 2018 5 million players was announced in July 2018 8.4…

Announced: Sea of Thieves Roleplaying Game

Angle the sails! Man the cannons! Roll the dice! News
Yesterday on Reddit and Twitter, Sea of Thieves announced their official roleplaying game. We’re pleased to announce in partnership with Mongoose Publishing, the release of the Sea of Thieves Roleplaying Game. The Sea of Thieves Roleplaying Game is the only way to Be More Pirate on the tabletop! Using the new Avast system, we’ve ensured you’ll be playing within minutes of opening the box set, setting out on a Voyage designed to introduce both players and Gamesmasters to the Sea of Thieves. You will soon be fighting skeletons, uncovering buried gold, and hunting down a deceitful captain! The Sea of…

Arena lobby times have been reduced

Less wait before you dominate. Tidbits
Today Jason Cross, Producer of The Arena, announced improvements to the Tavern (lobby) waiting times. We have just implemented the following changes which you will begin to experience immediately: Reward Timer: 15 seconds – down from two minutes. (Time spent in the tavern following a contest when rewards are given and the banners are unfurled.) Staging Timer: one minute – down from five minutes. (Time spent searching for a fifth crew when you have four crews in the tavern. When this timer expires, your game begins the Ready Timer.) Ready Timer: one minute – unchanged. (Time spent when all crews…

Improvements are coming to riddles

Avoiding riddles on the seas, perhaps we could improve them please. Tidbits
We’ve all felt the pain of loading up a Gold Hoarders voyage to be greeted with a fat stack of riddles. They’re certainly fun at first. But the time required to complete them just isn’t worth it for a single chest, especially the 4-steppers. It’s long been the subject of mild irritation from players, with endless suggestion threads on Reddit and the official forums. With the recent addition of collectors chests to the game, there have been some suggestions use these to expand how riddles work. On a Reddit thread suggesting that riddles could perhaps drop trinkets to be stored…