News, updates and info from the Sea of Thieves.

Making the ‘Sea of Thieves: Origins’ Comics

Bonus: FREE COMICS! Tidbits
On the Sea of Thieves blog this week, the team have detailed the process of bringing the Sea of Thieves: Origins comics to life. Origins is a short series of stand-alone comics that focus on each of the first three Trading Companies. It’s an incredibly collaborative process, with Rare writers suggesting outlines and the comics artists adjusting to the lore and existing game mechanics so the story resonates with players. “The great thing about working on videogame-based comics is finding a new way to celebrate the pre-existing visuals and the narrative. The Sea of Thieves game is rich with striking stylistic characters,…

Adventure Q&A

Chris Davies and Steven Dillon answer questions from the community. Roundups
In October the Sea of Thieves community team hosted a Q&A with Senior Designer Chris Davies and Game Designer Steven Dillon. 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 – As always, these have been omitted from this roundup, but you can go looking for them here (however I’ve left ones in about Captaincy as these seem to indicate that a Captaincy update is in active development).     Q. “Captaincy for Pirate Legends” that is the question. Chris:…

Dev Update (video)

Ghoul and Glory! Dev Update Videos
A short dev update this week, but a small handful of interesting tidbits. You should watch the video above as always, but here’s a summary for piratical posterity. Fort of the Damned The update has landed really well with players. It’s created a huge variety of player stories, with amazing moments. A Fort Completion hotfix has rolled out which should completely clear up any missed commendations moving forward. (You should note this is not a retroactive fix, which is disappointing). The Arena Duo Sloops has been very popular in Arena, and the overall number of players playing both Galleon and…

Release Notes – 2.0.8

Fort of the Damned! Regular Releases
[Link] FORT OF THE DAMNED An eerie mist rolls into the Sea of Thieves, it transpires that not all the Dark Relics were safely retrieved, and twisted rituals have secretly continued. Dark Forces have begun to emerge from the shadows, seizing an old fort for their evil rituals and opening a window to the Sea of the Damned. Rally your crew and battle through the emerging Shadows of Fate to thwart their evil schemes! Ritual Skull Seeker Bounty Voyages – Stitcher Jim has warned of the presence of a dangerous new type of Shadow Skeletons ambushing pirates across the seas. While…

Skeleton pets!

Get ready for the bones brigade. Tidbits
The Fort of the Damned update is due to go live tomorrow, but we’ve already got our first hint of some incoming cosmetics. The Pirate Emporium page on the official Sea of Thieves website received a stealth update to the banner earlier today, with an image highlighting two new pet variations – both of the skeletal variety. These will no doubt be available to purchase with Ancient Coin, but we’re yet to find out if they’re time-limited. It’s certainly possible given the spooky theme of this month’s update. If you pull out your spy glass you’ll also note the Killer…

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 🏴‍☠️📜🎣…