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

A full weapons rebalance is coming

Bullet-speed, damage, knock-back, hip-fire all to be tweaked. News
In a (very short) dev update this week, Joe expanded on the brief mentions we’ve heard previously about some “all-up combat tweaks” that  are coming in the Feb 6 update. Here’s his direct quote from the video: As well as [the double gun fix], we’re looking at a bunch of general combat tweaks and improvements – everything around personal combat. At the moment we’re testing a bunch of those changes and tweaks with Pioneers, so we’re not quite ready to talk about the specifics of what we’re doing because we’re still taking feedback and adjusting, but broadly we’re going to…

Live Stream: Non-Stop Boombox Action

Questions and answers galore! Tidbits
This was a really fun and entertaining stream with explosions and shenanigans galore. And, lucky for us, a huge amount of Q&A too (despite Jon starting every stream letting the viewers know they won’t be taking questions, nice try Jon). If you have time, definitely give the full video a watch. But if you’re only interesting in the goss, here are the notes:   Event Frequency Burger: Is the fort frequency going to stay? Andy: We looked at a bunch of events and things that can happen inside the world – so the forts, the kraken, the megalodon and the…

Mouse and Keyboard support is coming to Sea of Thieves (updated x3)

Squeak. News
UPDATE: That was quick! Razer has now removed Sea of Thieves (and quite a few other games) from their page. Big Brother is watching! Click to see the original page vs the update. It’s probably very safe to assume support is indeed coming for the now-removed games, although they’re obviously not ready to announce yet. UPDATE 2: Unrelated to the Razer snafu, Executive Producer Joe Neate confirmed on today’s live-stream that mouse and keyboard for console “is on our roadmap”. UPDATE 3 (March 14): Mouse and Keyboard for console is slated for release into the game on March 20th, 2019. In…

Sea of Thieves in the Top 10 most searched video games on Google

It’s the most searched new IP on the list. Tidbits
Sea of Thieves has garnered the 7th spot in the trending “video games” search results in Google’s Year In Search 2018. While it’s a genuinely impressive result for a supposedly “dead game“, it’s worth keeping context in mind. According to Google “lists are based on search terms that had the highest spike this year as compared to the previous year.” With this in mind it makes sense that Sea of Thieves might be higher on this list since it launched this year. It is notable though that it’s the highest new IP on the list, and the other franchise games all…

Sea of Tease: New ship-to-ship interactions are on the horizon

New and interesting ways. Tidbits
Reddit user Decoraan spotted this interesting tidbit from the most recent weekly dev live-stream (1:00:13): Joe (reading question): “Have you ever considered boarding ropes?” Hmmmmmm James: Ah, interesting..! Joe: That’s an interesting questions isn’t it. James, have you ever considered boarding ropes in Sea of Thieves? James: Boarding ropes is, ah, it’s an interesting one. I’m not usually that into PvP so, ah, it’s something I’m sure I could look at using? [Gameplay mayhem] Joe: New and interesting ways for interactions between ships and stuff in the future, it’s definitely [something] we’ve got our eye on. Not directly boarding ropes,…

More forts, ships, megs and krakens is a permanent thing

The increase in encounters – introduced in Shrouded Spoils – is here to stay. Tidbits
If you’ve played many of the major Sea of Thieves content updates or Bilge Rat Adventures, you’ll know that it was quite normal for the spawn rates of items or enemies in the game to be increased during the event – the increased numbers of sharks in the lead up to The Hungering Deep, boom-skellies during Gunpowder Skeletons, or mermaid spawns during The Sunken Curse, to name a few. This has lead to some speculation that perhaps the increased encounters that have made Shrouded Spoils so engaging might be reduced after the event. Never fear, pirates. Senior Producer, Drew Stevens,…

How the Mermaids made their way back into Sea of Thieves

“I feel like you can lay the blame at my door.” Tidbits
Not long after Shrouded Spoils arrived, Rare coder James Thomas hinted that he’d tell the story of why the Mermaids were removed from the game for Forsaken Shores, and how they made their way back in. One day (probably this week) I’ll reveal the petulant tale of how I held these mermaid statues hostage until they were given a purpose. — James Thomas (@BIGsheep) November 28, 2018 Later that week James dropped some fantastic behind the scenes info, which gives some great insight into how the team at Rare are developing Sea of Thieves. We’re reproduced the thread here: James…

All forts are going active with Shrouded Spoils

Get ready to fight up hills and on narrow walkways. News
We’ve known for a while that the currently inactive forts didn’t quite make it through play testing before the launch of the game, and had been put on the back burner for a while. Well Rare have been hard at work bringing a ton improvements to the game in Shrouded Spoils, and it appears forts have received some attention too. During this week’s stream, Jon and Joe announced that all remaining forts will be going active with the Shrouded Spoils update! 🚨 ALL THE FORTS ARE BEING ACTIVATED IN SHROUDED SPOILS 🚨 9 total forts + emergent, roaming Skelly Ships……

Should we be worried that Rare is ‘splitting the player base’?

Here’s everything the team at Rare has said about Adventure vs Arena. Roundups
The recent announcement of the upcoming “The Arena” update to Sea of Thieves, which introduces a new competitive game mode, has been and enthusiastic but mixed reception from Sea of Thieves players. Fans on both the official forum and Reddit have been voicing their concerns that the introduction of this new game mode is a Very Bad Thing™ and signals a failing of the core game, leading to the apparent inevitability that Rare will end up placing all of their focus on the battle mode if it becomes popular, leaving Adventure to languish. Worse still, they’re worried that Rare’s development…

XO18 Panel with Joe Neate and Craig Duncan

Our full and detailed summary of the entire discussion! Roundups
Rare Studio Head, Craig Duncan, and Sea of Thieves Executive Producer, Joe Neate caught up with Xbox’s Major Nelson to talk Sea of Thieves and field some questions from the audience and from Mixer chat. It’s worth watching the whole thing, however, if you don’t have time for that, here’s a full and detailed summary of what was covered: The Arena The Arena is a response to some players wanting more focus on action, as well as shorter session lengths. A new trading company, the Sea Dogs. It’s a “new way to progress” in Sea of Thieves. Confirmed DeMarco is in…

Sea of Thieves: The Arena (updated)

Now you know everything we know. News
At XO18 today, Rare Studio Head, Graig Duncan, and Sea of Thieves executive producer, Joe Neate, unveiled the next (after Shrouded Spoils) major update to the game: The Arena! The Arena will introduce a new mode to Sea of Thieves. Announcing #SeaOfThieves: The Arena – a new competitive game mode coming in 2019. Prove your worth in the game’s fifth free content update, test your pirating skills against other crews and impress the new Trading Company – the Sea Dogs! Watch the trailer: https://t.co/i0fV8i6ALW — Sea of Thieves (@SeaOfThieves) November 10, 2018 This dedicated PvP game mode will be separate…

What’s up with Forts and Skelly Ships?

Improvements to how Forts stack behind Skelly Ships are in the works. Tidbits
Since the end of Cursed Sails, and the introduction of the fort-like Skeleton Ship encounters (signified by the cloud ship), you will have noticed that Skull Forts no longer activate until the Skelly Ships are cleared. Because the payouts for defeating the fleet captain were initially half what they were during the event (they’ve since been increased), pirates have been much less likely to tackle the Skelly Ships, meaning a huge reduction in Forts activating overall. Senior Producer, Drew Stevens, dropped by one of the many Reddit threads discussing this topic to shed some light on the situation. Hey Everyone, I’ve…

Blocktober

See what those now-familiar islands looked like as low-poly placeholders. Tidbits
In October 2017 Michael Barclay, from Naughty Dog, started the Twitter hashtag #Blocktober with the goal of showcasing the rarely seen stages of game development where rough versions of objects and mechanics are put into action, giving devs an idea of how those systems play together. Luckily for Sea of Thieves watchers, Design Director, Mike (Chappers) Chapman, joined in the festivities by sharing some screenshots and information from early in the development of the game. Read on to sea Snake Island like you’ve never seen it before! Mike Chapman: Time to get involved with #Blocktober! Here’s one the first islands that…

The Forsaken Shores web page is up

Get a look at those sweet, sweet cosmetics. Tidbits
The Sea of Thieves website was just updated with their dedicated Forsaken Shores page. There’s not really any new information there, but it sure is nice to see all those delectable cosmetics on show. One important note: Cargo Runs voyages on behalf of the Merchant Alliance are due to drop into the game on “Week 3” of Forsaken Shores, so you can expect that to land around October 10-11th. If you feel like having a reminisce, you can also check out The Hungering Deep and Cursed Sails web pages too. Them were the days.