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

Developer Update (video)

Cross play controls are coming for console players. Dev Update Videos
In a dev update today that covered reporting and banning toxic behaviour, and some background on the thinking behind the the upcoming weapons balance (with a detailed breakdown of the changes coming in next week’s dev update), Executive Producer Joe Neate covered another topic that has been a long standing point of discussions among Sea of Thieves players: cross play. Joe has confirmed that, in the lead up to the public release of The Arena, console players will be able to opt out of cross-play in both Adventure mode and The Arena. Sea of Thieves is a cross play title, and…

Developer Update (video)

“What I do have are a very particular set of skills.” Dev Update Videos
Notes of interest: A wave of bans have gone out for a “very small amount” of players who have been cheating. “We will find you, and we will ban you.” A new update will come on February 6th. As part of the update players will need to re-download the full game again, however the overall game size is much smaller (roughly half or less). As well as general quality-of-life improvements, streamer mode, double-gun fix, and combat tweaks/improvements are also coming in the Feb 6 release. There’s a “fun little thing” planned for the release too, but they’re not ready to…

Sea of Thieves Weekly Stream: Athena’s Fortune

Parrots confirmed. Live Stream Roundups
More tidbits from Joe this week, including more tease about something “kind of fun” coming with the Feb 6th release. Will be a fun event/activity (Joe has previously said it will “celebrate friendship”. Joe might talk about it on Inside Xbox (early Feb) but until then there will probably not be any ‘content’ announcements (aside from the already public stuff – Arena, Quests, Pets). Here’s some Q&A of note:   Q: How is Arena going in Pioneers testing? Joe: Arena isn’t yet in Pioneers but it’s the next goal for it. Shelley: We’re still fairly early with Arena in terms of…

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…

Developer update (video)

Double gun will become undone. Dev Update Videos
Notes of interest: The key next step for Arena is to get it into the Pioneers testing program to start getting feedback. Rare want to grow and build Arena with Pioneers before it goes out to a wide release. The double-gun exploit has become more prevalent recently. The effective “one-shot” nature of the current usage was never the intended design. A fix will be coming “to one of our game updates”. A setting to disable gamertags will be coming in the next update (useful for streamers). The “Recent Players” view on Xbox has been buggy and will be in the…

Creating a new type of multiplayer game

Joe’s talk from the Fun and Serious Game Festival. Talks & Panels
Executive Producer, Joe Neate, recently presented a talk at the Fun and Serious Game Festival about how the team at Rare set out to create “a new type of multiplayer game”. There’s some interesting background in here about Rare’s original goals for Sea Of Thieves and how they focussed on player stories and building an experience to give players a range of emotions. There’s also some excellent acting work from Design Director, Mike Chapman. Looks like the talk I gave at the @funandserious festival is up online. If you're interested in how we set out to create a new type…

Developer Update (video)

Reviewing 2018. Dev Update Videos
A long update from Joe today as he takes a look back at 2018. Joe covers the tie leading up tot he launch of the game, what launch was like, how the team felt about how the game was reviewed, and much more. He also says “moment in time” a lot! It’s a great look back at the year from his point of view, and worth a watch for any Sea of Thieves fan.

Tales from the Tavern (podcast)

Videos
This is a great, long-ranging chat from Joe, Jon, Emma, Craig and Matt Booty (Head of Xbox Studios). Hearing Craig and Joe talk about the first week after launch, in contrast to the Shrouded Spoils release, really puts the year into perspective. There’s not much in the way of tidbits here, but Joe does mention a “new location” that is being worked on as part of a future release (could be the Sea Dogs Tavern, or possibly something further out?) and Craig mentioned “tens of thousands” of new players thanks to the various Black Friday deals.

Developer Update (video)

Too Shrouded, Two Spoils. Dev Update Videos
Notes of interest: The feedback on Shrouded Spoils has been great. Feedback on the release will be monitored over time, for example: Frequency of forts, krakens Difficulty of the Devil’s Roar, maybe rock accuracy has been turned down too far? The Bone Crusher cannon design will be tweaked for better visibility when manning the cannons. Because the changes to some of the achievements have been made without any prior notice, and some players were still trying to reach them, any player who reaches the new achievement thresholds by December 14th 2018 will get the Overachiever sails. More on that here….

Developer Update (video)

‘The Talent’ rambles about Shrouded Spoils. Dev Update Videos
Obviously this one is all Joe talking about Shrouded Spoils. There’s not much of note here that’s not already in the Release Notes or the Content Update video. It’s worth a watch though – enjoy!

Developer Update (video)

Looking forward to XO18 and Shrouded Spoils. Dev Update Videos
Notes of interest: Joe reviews Festival of the Damned, watching all the fun ways people are dying and what they’re doing with the lanterns. The only thing that’s time-limited is the cosmetics; the lanterns and beacons remains in the game! The next update is Shrouded Spoils Some of the content from the update is in testing with Pioneers Also testing that the size of all the inclusions fit in game memory Looking at ~late-November A content update video will be on the way, close to release This weekend is XO18 where Joe and Craig Duncan will show off a trailer…

Developer Update (video)

Drew “The Talent” Stevens. Dev Update Videos
Drew takes over for Joe, who is too busy galavanting. Notes of interest: Forsaken Shores is now finished, and the time-limited cosmetic content is gone Everything else from Forsaken Shores remains in the game, including the campaign, commendations and titles, and doubloons. Festival of the Damned is now live! Take the light from the well of souls of the Ferry and light your ship lanterns. There’s beacons around the world to light for various commendations. Festival and Ferryman cosmetics, as well as face-paint and makeup. Storms are more dangerous during the festival. Server migrations have been improved around Skelly Ship…

Inn-side Story: Visual Effects (video)

Fire! Splashes! Bubbles! Behind the Scenes Videos
This month’s Inn-side Story features a chat with Andreas and Natalie from Rare’s visual effects team. Seeing how they pulled real life photo and video captures into the game in a way that retains the Sea of Thieves visual style is fascinating. Check it out, then pay careful attention to the world around you on your next adventure to see their handiwork in action!