‘The Journey to Mêlée Island’

• Players will no longer receive Emissary Grade progression when placing Red Herrings on board their ship.

Battle for the Sea of Thieves

• Players will now see their previously earned Allegiance at the correct level. This issue was purely visual, and no Allegiance earned has been lost.

Text and Localisation

• Improvements have been made to localisation for those playing through Sea of Thieves: The Legend of Monkey Island in languages other than English.

Performance and Stability

• Improved client stability for lower-spec hardware across general gameplay to reduce scenarios where players may exit the game unexpectedly.

To learn more about known issues in Sea of Thieves currently being tracked and their status, head over to our Known Issues support site article.

These release notes cover a hotfix. For full details on recently added game features, see the release notes on our latest content update.

Download Size:

• Steam: 5.19 GB

Hello, pirates. As some of you may have seen, we released a video today detailing some of the changes we’ve had to make to our upcoming release roadmap. Unfortunately, this includes the difficult decision to push back the launch of Season Ten to Thursday, 19th October 2023.

It’s not a decision we’ve taken lightly, and we share your disappointment that it’s something we’ve needed to do. However, after careful consideration, we firmly believe that it’s the best thing to do for the quality of the release, the sustainability of our development process and the wellbeing of our team.


Those of you who caught the recent episode of our podcast will have heard us discussing the challenges of implementing new systems into a game like Sea of Thieves. These types of foundational releases are challenging to make, as we have to ensure they interact with all the existing systems in the game.

One such challenge has been the Season Ten headline feature, which we’ve already talked about as something that we’ve found tougher than anticipated to pull together – especially to the quality bar we’re striving to meet.


We recognise that it’s not just the delay of new content that’s frustrating, but the impact on Season Nine’s length too. It was never our intention to have it last this long, and we understand that many of our players will have already hit Renown level 100 and feel like they’ve explored everything there is to see and do with the features introduced in Season Nine.

We know you’ve come to expect a consistent rhythm of how and when we deliver new gameplay experiences, and Season Ten’s delay means that we’ll be asking you to wait a little while longer to get your hands on a big, brand new feature. However, there’s still a whole lot happening outside the Seasonal rhythm – so we’re hopeful that even without a new Season next month, you’ll still have lots to do.

For those of you who missed the news, a trio of Tall Tales for Sea of Thieves: The Legend of Monkey Island will be released over the course of July, August and September – with the first of these new Tales, ‘The Journey to Mêlée Island’, available to dive into right now.

August and September also have a solid line-up of shenanigans, with a Gold & Glory Weekend kicking things off from August 4th-7th. Legends Week will then be returning after its inaugural event last year, with new things to do and earn for both Legends and Legends-to-be. A special Community Weekend with an exciting new flavour is scheduled for September too. We’ll be sharing more about these events in the coming weeks, so please stay tuned for details on what they all entail.


Even though moving Season Ten back wasn’t something we were eager to do, the shuffle has opened up an opportunity: it’s meant that we’ve been able to take what was originally targeted as the next Season’s headline content and make it part of Season Ten. The current plan is for this to launch in the second month of Season Ten, which would mean players getting two headliner features in as many months.

So we’re hopeful that while things may feel a little slow at the moment, we’ll be barrelling into the last few months of the year with lots of momentum, giving players the sense of a world re-energised by a packed Season Ten schedule including multiple feature releases, events and experiences.

It’s important for us to stress that we listen to everything you say, and we really do value your feedback. We’re always listening to what our players want, and even if we can’t act on things immediately – game development does take time – there are some really exciting elements to our upcoming roadmap that hit on things that you’ve all been asking for, in some cases for a long while.


When it comes to feedback on hot topics like cheating, hit registration and combat, we also want to reassure you that we’re working hard behind the scenes in those areas. When we have more info to share on these, we will – but we currently have teams dedicated to revisiting and improving these core experiences for our players. Insiders will have recently seen and experienced some of the planned changes, and we continue to take on board their valuable feedback to make these updates the best they can be.

Even when we can sense the frustration from various pockets of players, we know that Sea of Thieves’ community remains the best in gaming. Your enthusiasm, passion and commitment to our game makes us strive for the best – not just in delivering things you’re asking for, but by pushing us to think about ways we can continuously surprise and excite you.

Looking back at the highlights of 2023 so far, we’ve loved celebrating our fifth anniversary with you all, setting live more new Adventures, sending you off on The Hoarder’s Hunt and most recently releasing the first Legend of Monkey Island Tall Tale. Moving back the release of Season Ten is not exactly how we wanted to proceed with the year, but it does give us an opportunity to reinforce the Season with more content than originally planned – and we can’t wait to share more with you on what’s in store when the time’s right.

We look forward to carrying plenty of momentum into 2024 with plans that are ambitious and bold, including some important designs on refreshing the Sea of Thieves sandbox. Thank you for sticking with us – we appreciate you endlessly, and we’re committed to rewarding your patience with a bolstered, blockbuster final few months of 2023.

The wait is over and your journey deep in the Caribbean can begin! An exciting new expedition delivered across three of Sea of Thieves’ tried and tested Tall Tales, The Legend of Monkey Island was unveiled at last month’s Xbox Games Showcase and welcomes you to a whole new world on July 20th.

‘The Journey to Mêlée Island’ is the first Tall Tale to arrive, but before we dive into more detail, let’s step back for a brief primer on The Legend of Monkey Island itself…

Sea of Thieves: The Legend of Monkey Island is a collaboration between Rare and Lucasfilm Games that brings together two beloved casts of pirate characters to tell an original story. It’s designed to appeal to fresh-faced explorers and lifelong fans alike, immersing you in the world of Monkey Island in a hilarious and heartfelt love letter to the iconic adventure game series.

Across three new narrative-driven and voice-acted Tall Tales, released monthly, you’ll set sail in search of Guybrush Threepwood, go head-to-head with the ghost pirate Captain LeChuck and break a devious curse that has ensnared Mêlée Island.

Whether you’re solving puzzles, mastering Insult Sword Fighting or navigating through lava-filled catacombs with Guybrush as your guide, this is an opportunity to experience the world of Monkey Island like never before…


It all begins this month in the first new Tall Tale, ‘The Journey to Mêlée Island’. After you've stopped by Capsize Charters at your starting Outpost, you’ll be ready to start the search for Guybrush Threepwood, who’s gone missing while on his way to the Sea of Thieves.

Once you reach Mêlée Island, you’ll explore iconic locations and meet familiar faces as you discover that things are not as they should be. Why does everyone believe Guybrush to be the greatest pirate who ever lived – and why has nobody seen him in so long?

Explore the riches recently revealed on Sea of Thieves’ YouTube channel to learn more about the puzzles and perils wrapped up in ‘The Journey to Mêlée Island’, then get ready to sail some very different seas. Secrets, side-quests and new rewards await you…


As the first instalment of Sea of Thieves: The Legend of Monkey Island arrives, so too does a fresh batch of Pirate Emporium stock. Ready to strike terror into the hearts of your foes? Take inspiration from the ghost pirate Captain LeChuck and outfit your vessel with the LeChuck’s Legacy ship set. Captains can add the finishing touch with a matching Ship’s Crest!

Or take on a more personal veneer of villainy by dressing like Guybrush’s arch-nemesis with the LeChuck Costume Set. Including three variants and a Swordpoint Stance Emote, it ensures even mighty pirates will regret crossing your path – especially if you come wielding the LeChuck’s Legacy weapons.

A Piranha Poodle pet and new artistic ship Trinkets round out The Legend of Monkey Island celebrations this month. All available alongside this new update from July 20th!


So set out on ‘The Journey to Mêlée Island’ today, and discover what’s in store for you, Guybrush and an array of colourful characters found deep in the Caribbean as The Legend of Monkey Island unfolds this summer. We’ll see you in the Scumm Bar…

© 2023 MICROSOFT. © & ™ LUCASFILM LTD.

Voyage deep into the Caribbean with Sea of Thieves: The Legend of Monkey Island – an original story told across three Tall Tales, and a hilarious, heartfelt love letter to the iconic Monkey Island game series. The first of these Tall Tales is available to play now!

‘The Journey to Mêlée Island’

• An ambitious new arrival at the Outposts is seeking help to hunt down Guybrush Threepwood, who disappeared while sailing to the Sea of Thieves. Via the Sea of the Damned, you’ll journey to the fabled Mêlée Island, where Guybrush is now revered as a legendary pirate of unparalleled talents. Clearly, something is very wrong…
  
• New Commendations, achievements and rewards have been added with this update, marking your progress as you make your way through ‘The Journey to Mêlée Island’ Tall Tale.
  
• To find out much more, head to our dedicated page on The Legend of Monkey Island.

Show off your personal style with purchases from the Pirate Emporium! Pick up cosmetics such as ship liveries, costumes, weapons, pets and emotes using your Ancient Coins, purchasable with real money. Head to the Pirate Emporium page to find out more about the latest arrivals.

New Items – Now in Stock!

• LeChuck’s Legacy Ship Collection
  
• LeChuck’s Legacy Ship’s Crest
  
• LeChuck’s Legacy Weapon Bundle
  
• LeChuck Costume Set
  
• Piranha Poodle Pet
  
• Mêlée Island Painting Bundle
  
• Pocket Seagull Emote
  
• Close Call Weapon Pose Emote
  
• Spin and Shoot Emote (free!)
  
• Brooding Buccaneer Bundle (Steam Store)

New Weaponsmith Stock

• The Outpost weaponsmiths now stock a range of new swords. Pirates can pick up the Wailing Barnacle Heavy Sword, Wailing Barnacle Rapier, Silent Barnacle Heavy Sword and Silent Barnacle Rapier, all available to purchase with gold.

Narration Playback Speed

• Players using ‘Let Games Read to Me’ now have additional control within the Settings menu to adjust the playback speed of the narration to whatever is most convenient and comfortable for them.

Riddle Map Narration

• Players using ‘Let Games Read to Me’ will find that when raising a Riddle Map, the text found on the parchment will now be narrated.

Gameplay

• Crews sinking a rival ship will now find that any resource barrels and treasure items left floating in the water are brought along with them after migrating servers.
  
• Pirates are once again able to place recovered Captain’s Logbooks into a Collector’s Chest.

Battle for the Sea of Thieves

• Crews are now consistently able to purchase Resource Crates and Captain’s Supplies upon arrival at the Outpost after losing a battle.
  
• The ship’s wheel will no longer be affected by storm conditions when diving below the waves or resurfacing for a battle.

Captains of Adventure

• Players who were eligible to receive the Gilded Sovereign Captain’s Table by reaching Class 50 in any Pirate Milestone prior to Captain’s Week will now find the item has been distributed to their accounts.
  
• Trinkets that are knocked out of place prior to migrating servers can once again be interacted with upon arrival.

Visual and Audio

• Pirates’ hands no longer intersect with the stock of the Beachcomber's Bounty Eye of Reach or Blunderbuss.
  
• The lanterns on the Dark Warsmith Ship’s Crest are now attached correctly and move with the ship.
  
• Equipping any regular pirate cosmetics while wearing the Skeleton Curse will no longer cause those items to be displayed together.
  
• Taking to a water slide should now show the correct visual splashes while descending.
  
• The Party Boat Cutlass now displays visual trails when swung.
  
• Watching a video from the What’s New section should no longer overlay button images on the video.

Text and Localisation

• Clues recovered during a Lost Shipment Voyage are no longer cut off at the edge of the parchment.

Performance and Stability

• Players will no longer experience instability when switching between video content in the What’s New section of the front end.
  
• Players on Steam Deck will no longer experience instability when attempting to play the intro video or browse the What’s New section on the front end.
  
• Ongoing improvements to server stability to reduce instances where players are disconnected from their session.

To learn more about known issues in Sea of Thieves currently being tracked and their status, head over to our Known Issues support site article.

Download Size:

• Steam: 14.64 GB

With the warm winds of June in our sails, the time has once again come to look back on the pirates who’ve recently stepped into our Spotlight to share their experiences on the Sea of Thieves. Since we last caught up with you in March, the brave souls below have faced our questions with nary a quiver, including noted cosplayers, gifted artists and community staples. Let’s find out what they all had to say…


First up was the costume connoisseur TizzyTam! In this Creator Spotlight, the cosplaying corsair regaled us with tales of her history with Crash Bandicoot, her experiences at SoTFest ’22 (including hosting) and how important it is to be yourself and not cave in to pressure from others. But do you think Sir Arthur Pendragon and Jar Jar Binks are synonymous? We have our doubts.


Later in March we lined up another Creator Spotlight, this time checking in with one of the community’s favourite yarn-spinners, Cliff the Story Guy. Taking a break from his usual schedule of sharing stories and guides on YouTube, Cliff delved into what brought him to video production in the first place and how his experiences shape his approach to content creation.


Next on our list, we returned to the world of streaming with the help of a recent inductee into the Sea of Thieves Partner Programme, LadyHaradaNiwa! Another pillar of the cosplay community and a big Belle fan, she discussed her journey to also becoming a Twitch Partner, how she got her channel name and what advice she’d offer to other upcoming content creators.


For our first Community Spotlight in this batch, we took the time to check in with artist and ten-time #SoTShot winner zNiinjaa to find out just what his secret is. Alongside reminiscing over The Arena, he discussed some of his favourite pieces of art and achievements in Sea of Thieves, as well as an unusual tattoo subject. Do you have any pirate-themed body mods?


As we moved into May, the Creator Spotlight highlighted event organiser and Nightmare mode hopeful LDSylvr. The conversation ranged from events like The Boomer Games and Captains of the Sylvr’d Waters to surviving tornadoes. If you’ve ever wondered why someone would undertake the mammoth task of trying to reach Pirate Legend without dying, give it a read…


May’s Community Spotlight saw us featuring our avian friend Owlet! Unsurprisingly, we did end up touching on the topic of his famous daily owl requests and appearance in the Voyage of a Lifetime documentary, but we also heard about his work in musical theatre and how he briefly became Emperor of Tamriel. Not a bad promotion for a weekend’s worth of work.


Forging ahead into June, we kept the Community Spotlights coming with a Wh1zzrr_ encounter, chatting to her just ahead of her entry into the Partner Programme ranks. As a TikTok-based pirate tipster and trainer, Wh1zzrr_ told us the tale of how she carved out this niche for herself before going on to mention her other interests in writing, museum-hopping and more.


In our final Spotlight for this catch-up batch, we hopped on deck with the fightin’ pirate AweCoop to hear about his adventures from well over a decade of creating content. Trusted friendships, time management, tennis and maintaining a healthy balance of trash-talking vs. wholesome encounters were other subjects we criss-crossed over the course of the conversation.

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And thus, with a full four months’ worth of recent Spotlights under our belts, we call an end to the sixth Spotlight Showcase! As always, the full interviews can be found by clicking through to the Sea of Thieves website, all packed with interesting insights and fun facts about some of the community’s favourite faces. If you’re hungry for even more, you can read up on all our previous Community, Creator and Legend Spotlights via our News page, or catch the highlights in our previous Showcases.

We’ll be back with even more Spotlight fun in the next few weeks, so keep an eye on all the usual channels. Until then, farewell and may the wind be in your sails!

We always say it was a busy month, but June really was a busy month, wasn’t it? With a Mystery, an Event, a Showcase and an Adventure, there was hardly a moment to catch your breath, but fear not: the latest round-up is here to fill you in on anything you missed. All you need to do is sit back, pour yourself a responsible drink and join us on the latest little trip down memory lane.

We entered June with the community scrambling to uncover clues to solve the final stage of The Hoarder’s Hunt. The devilish schemes of ‘H’ had those hunters baffled for days, with the tempting promise of a golden skull only making the end goal more enticing. It took some time – and more code decryption than you’d usually expect to perform in your day-to-day life – but the Mystery was eventually cracked and the final chest opened! Of ‘H’ himself there was no sign, only one last letter left behind in farewell.

Elsewhere on the Outposts, the Sovereigns were a bit put out by all the attention the Gold Hoarders were getting, so they were only too happy to align themselves with a new Event. Captain’s Week offered opportunities for Captains across the waves to reap boosted rewards from their treasure and purchase ships at a discount – but even better, handing in those treasures to the Sovereigns allowed pirates to add the glistening Captain’s Rapier and Captain’s Heavy Sword to their armoury.

It was a good thing too, as they’d soon be called upon to take up arms again. With the launch of our latest time-limited Adventure, a summons by a powerful figure sent players out across the waves in search of a stolen artefact. After some reluctant help from the Order of Souls, the Adventure concluded with the discovery of a hidden vault and the realisation that not everything was as it seemed...


If you checked in to the Xbox Games Showcase early in June, you’ll already know our biggest news of the month: The Legend of Monkey Island is coming to Sea of Thieves! With the first of these new Tall Tales due to land later this month, our announcement article give some hints at what’s to come, along with all the details you’ll need to make sure you don’t miss a thing.

Meanwhile, as Captain’s Week swept in with a gaggle of new ship owners, it seemed only reasonable to help speed them along with a handy-dandy guide to all the perks their new Captaincy status afforded them. Have you been making the best use of your ship-owning benefits?

There was also another selection of Spotlights to enjoy: this month we were joined by famed community builder and guide Wh1zzrr_ and competitive pro AweCoop to hear about their journey on the seas and any advice they were willing to share. And finally, rounding out the month, the Sea of Thieves Security Team stopped by to share some of their latest work in ensuring the seas stay safe and fair for all in our first Fair Play Update column.


With various reveals and announcements happening, you might expect that our video roster for June was filled with trailers – and it was! – but first, we took some time for a little introspection. Since ‘We Shall Sail Together’ reached 10 million streams on Spotify at the tail end of May, we started the month by speaking to one of the musical maestros behind the shanty. Did you know the opening lyrics of ‘Who Shall Not Be Returning’ were originally written for ‘We Shall Sail Together’? Now you do!

Oh, and if that wasn’t enough music news for you, June also saw ‘Return of the Damned’ added to the streaming platform of your choice for assistance in making all those big life decisions. Does it really help? Probably not, but making them will feel a lot more epic with this playing in the background.

With those inspiring shanties fresh in our minds, it was then time to reveal our latest crossover and what better way to do so than with a snazzy announcement trailer? Premiered at the Xbox Games Showcase, this video offered everyone their first glimpse into the wonderful world of Sea of Thieves: The Legend of Monkey Island. Not long now…


In what should come as a surprise to no-one, Captain’s Week had us musing on eternal questions like how we’d choose whose ship to sail on, or what’s the best name for a ship, or even which Trinkets are better than all the rest. Needless to say, we came to no conclusions, but we did get to enjoy some surprisingly in-depth art critiques of everyone’s paintings.

Steering us into safer, if no less competitive waters, we closed out the Mysterious Moments #SoTShot competition early in the month with a series of spooky scenes. Later, everything got a lot more colourful as entries poured in for the Pirate Pride category and a new round of exceptional photographers earned their Golden Hour Sails. We even had a few extra sails to give away this month to anyone who could come up with an outstanding suggestion for future #SoTShot themes.

That wasn’t the only giveaway either, as one lucky Twitter user won themselves a copy of the newly compiled Sea of Thieves: Origins – Champion of Souls graphic novel! Alongside the latest round of Twitch Drops and a host of new Community Hub winners, June was clearly a good time to pick up some prizes.



And that, finally, brings us to the end of June! Was there anything we missed? What was your favourite part? What would you do if you were a fish? So many questions to consider. While you mull over these conundrums for the ages, feel free to head on over to our social channels on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube or Twitch, or join the official Forums or Discord. That way you’ll be able to keep up with all our latest news revelations and Subjects of Discourse as they arise, and ping over any feedback you want to share. Otherwise, we’ll be back in a month with all the joys of July – see you then!

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Sea of Thieves Round-Up: May 2023
Sea of Thieves Round-Up: April 2023
Sea of Thieves Round-Up: March 2023
Sea of Thieves Round-Up: February 2023
Sea of Thieves Round-Up: January 2023

After a month-long parade of riddles, enigmatic clues and listening really hard to a parrot, The Hoarder’s Hunt has reached its conclusion. With a real-life golden skull, silver keys and Reaper’s Mark medallions up for grabs, the competition to outwit the mysterious ‘H’ was certainly fierce, but things didn’t always unfurl exactly how the puppet-master intended – so let’s take a look back at exactly how Sea of Thieves’ second Mystery reached its end…

The Mystery began with a taunt from ‘H’ to the Gold Hoarders, warning them not to let pirates get involved in what was to come (as if). Several words in the message were capitalised, and the note was accompanied by a post on Instagram showing a banana, precisely bruised to show an image of the Gold Hoarder.

This cryptic story pushed players through to the Instagram account of Banana Bruiser who, as their name suggests, had plenty more edible art on display. One image in particular showed the creation of the Gold Hoarder banana, and thirteen mysterious symbols.

Some cursory cryptology and the note from ‘H’ revealed these symbols were intended to be decoded with a Pigpen cipher, and once translated they read ‘bitlysotfruit’ – a shortened internet URL that led to five images, each with more Pigpen symbols, a symbol of a fruit found in-game and an intriguing Spotify logo.

The angle at which a Pigpen symbol should be rotated is critical, and pirates were able to glean that information by aligning the fruits with an image posted on the Sea of Thieves Twitter account, giving a total of 16 scrambled letters. Pirates began to speculate that these should be decoded via a Vigenère cipher, which shifts letters ahead in the alphabet according to a keyword.

Where was that keyword? Scouring the canvases in the Sea of Thieves Spotify account soon revealed six more hidden letters spelling out ‘BOUNTY’, but the order of the original 16 still needed to be taken into consideration. Here, most pirates seemingly missed another clue available via Spotify – this time, the #BeMorePirate playlist, which had recently received a sneaky shuffle.

Now fittingly headlined with New Order, the first letter of each remaining song in the playlist spelled out ‘POM’, ‘COC’, ‘MAN’, ‘BAN’, ‘PIN’, hinting at the order in which the letters associated with each fruit should be entered into the Vigenère cipher. Even so, with only so many possible combinations to work through, the community cleverly put the undecoded clues in alphabetical order and soon decrypted the phrase ‘ZEROUTCFOURFIVET’ – or, when written another way, 0UTC45T – the first keyword to enter back on the Sea of Thieves website.

With this accomplished, pirates raced to grab their Voyages for Larinna and set sail with the clues from ‘H’ in hand, ultimately digging up the Plated Silver Key from beneath the tallest tree at Lone Cove. Then it was time for a well-deserved rest before the next stage of the Mystery began…


When a second note from ‘H’ arrived, they seemed to have birds on the brain. As soon as Stage Two began, ‘A Message from ‘H’’ began to broadcast on the official Sea of Thieves Twitch channel, showing a pair of parrots in the tavern squawking various, apparently random words.

During the stream, one of the birds took a fancy to a rather bruised banana, revealing another series of Pigpen symbols – by now, pirates immediately knew to translate them to ‘WHATTHREEWORDS’, suggesting that only a couple of the screeched phrases would be needed.

Oddly, though, the YouTube video of the stream seemed to be sending players to Google Maps instead of a more understandable location… In fact, what3words.com is a website that converts three-word phrases into map coordinates, so the true trick was to work out which three phrases resulted in locations that would mean something to pirates.

There were a lot of combinations to try, but by working together the community divined that ‘TURKEY GOAT LIVES’ equated to the Cutty Sark – once a British tea clipper, now a maritime museum. Exploring the community’s uploaded photos of the surrounding area via Google Street View revealed a perched parrot, a Gold Hoarder symbol and more Pigpen, which was promptly decoded into another shortened URL.

Things now took a musical turn, as a parchment covered in parrot prints turned out to be a cuneiform cipher hiding the lyrics of Sea of Thieves shanty ‘We Shall Sail Together’, albeit viewed through a purely phonetic lens. The last line of the parchment, however, was entirely new and read ‘Xbox Wire marks the spot’.

That Xbox news site had recently published an article about The Hoarder’s Hunt, and a thorough examination of the accompanying artwork revealed that not all was as it should be. A miniscule X was distorting the picture, and examining it in an image editor showed its true colours – in this case, the hexadecimal colour value ‘#2FACED’. Like 0UTC45T before it, this could also be read as another veiled insult from ‘H’, and 2FACED was duly confirmed to be the second of the Mystery’s keywords.

The hunt for the Argent Silver Key could now begin, with the musings of ‘H’ guiding pirates to Plunder Valley. Their interference in a game meant for the Gold Hoarders was not going to go unnoticed much longer…


In this third stage, ‘H’ revealed previously unseen artistic talent which he used to further his schemes. The newest note was accompanied by images of Gold Hoarder portraits, some of which had been scuffed with unusual scratch marks.

There were dozens of these to discover; some on social channels, others in videos or developers’ tweets. Pirates gathered up the portraits, once again turned to the Pigpen cipher and realised that many of these scratches were the parrots’ words from the last stage of the Mystery. What hidden value did they still possess?

Quite a lot, as it happens. Correctly combined by pairing parchments, these phrases were determined to be the identities of Twitter accounts – @WashedRobot, @frost_locker and @rockeddiet, each of which had posted a painting of a crew playing cards, titled ‘A Pirate Hand’. These images appeared identical at first glance, but it didn’t take long for players to spot a key difference in each painting (specifically, unique Roman numerals), nor to notice that the accounts’ profiles seemed to be teasing a new website address. However, one key piece was still missing…

Following the remaining Pigpen clues took pirates to Instagram, where a striking 3D image containing a skull and cannonball with a blue bird atop them clued artistic admirers into the existence of a fourth Twitter account. @SkullCannonball possessed not only a fourth version of ‘A Pirate Hand’, but the information in their profile allowed for the completion of the partial web address. Pirates flocked to ‘http://youareapiratepuppet.com’ in earnest, but there was still more to uncover.

Studying the cards being held in each painting variation unearthed the word ‘HEARTLESS’, which certainly seemed like the kind of term ‘H’ would use. Appending it to the newly discovered URL gave ‘http://youareapiratepuppet.com/heartless’, a page which held an abstract kind of map, first glimpsed alongside the parrots, and a new riddle to solve.

Applying some keen anagramming skills to the capitalised words in the riddle to form Sea of Thieves phrases and places, then pairing those with their co-ordinates on the adjacent map, led to the sequence ‘B07R1SSGJ5’. When searched for online, results included Amazon’s ASIN for the Sea of Thieves: Origins comic ‘The Price of Gold’, a sure sign pirates were on the right track.

Next, by treating certain suspect details in the paintings and map image as inputs for an Arnold cipher (historically used to pull specific terms from larger volumes of text), pirates were able to focus on a particular page, panel and word – ‘grudge’. Appending this to the piratepuppet.com URL just as they had with ‘heartless’, a new webpage and the final keyword, 3DGURG, were located.

In-game, the Sterling Silver Key was retrieved from Kraken’s Fall and returned to the Gold Hoarders. With all three keys found, the chest was opened at last – only to reveal another, smaller chest! ‘H’ was clearly not to be trusted, and this meant that the final stage of The Hoarder’s Hunt would be what revealed both the final key and the true treasure.


As the last stage began and another note from ‘H’ berated pirates for interfering in his scheme, the Sea of Thieves account tweeted out a short, Pigpen-dotted addendum from ‘H’ bidding pirates to find him, and a mysterious chest decked out with seafaring symbols.

Meanwhile, @SkullCannonball and the other accounts that had previously hosted paintings revealed themselves to be under the control of ‘H’, then unleashed fresh puzzles of their own: a riddle, a star chart, a word grid and a story full of jumbled words.

As if that wasn’t enough, each of the accounts now guided players to a map fragment covered in markings, which when pieced together correctly made an ‘H’ in the centre. The remaining markings could be overlaid with the original treasure chest image – a fact that would become important later…

Not content with dispensing map fragments, revised profiles on these four accounts also clued pirates into the need for a Foursquare cipher, populating it with the three Voyage-unlocking keywords discovered in the prior stages, and the standard alphabet in the fourth square.

One by one, three of the accounts’ puzzles fell to pirate ingenuity, revealing the phrases ‘Monarch’, ‘Eagle’ and ‘Snake’. Writing these out in sequence and plucking eight appropriate letters (indicated via the Pigpen) revealed a new pirate phrase in the making, and although pirates didn’t yet have all the pieces they needed, they were confident enough to head back to Twitter in search of ‘H’.

Sure enough, a new @HSeesAll account held a lengthy riddle surrounded by coins that left everyone stumped for a while, at least until a second note surfaced with suspiciously similar traits. This proved that players were on the right track, while also confirming that the word grid puzzle still held a crucial piece of information.

At this point, the cunning ‘H’ almost got the best of our pirates. Each of the clues that players had uncovered corresponded to a symbol on or around the chest image, with the fourth symbol being hinted at by a new phrase, ‘AFORECLOUD’, that had already been found in the word grid. That same word grid now needed to be treated as a word search.

Hidden within the heart of the grid’s many recognisable words was a seemingly meaningless sequence, ‘LOSSURRIC’. Words in word searches can be laid out in any direction, and immediately before ‘cirrus’, the cloud, was ‘Sol’, the sun. If pirates had located all four symbols around the chest – the Monarch, the Eagle, the Snake and the Sun – and drawn an X between them, they would have spied their starting point on the overlaid map: Booty Isle.

But even though they didn’t have a clear origin for a journey, nothing will keep a pirate from forging into the unknown. By returning to @HSeesAll’s riddle, treating the first letter of each line as a compass bearing and the number of words in each line as squares on the Sea of Thieves map, pirates soon found themselves aiming for Tribute Peak.

One last, spoken message from ‘H’ now confirmed the significance of the coins surrounding their riddle. By counting the cash piles and taking the appropriate letters from the phrase TRIBUTEPEAK, pirates were able to spell out ‘bait’, ‘trap’, ‘break’ and ‘retake’, a lengthy phrase that served as the keyword for the final Voyage.

Heading out onto the open waves, players saw the final clues fall one by one as they took a whirlwind tour of many of the game’s iconic landmarks. The Hoarder’s Hunt was complete at last, although ‘H’ – finally unmasking himself as the embittered outcast Hogarth, once of the Gold Hoarders and last seen in their Sea of Thieves: Origins comic miniseries mentioned above – remains at large.

Congratulations to our lucky winners, and thanks to all to set sail and joined The Hoarder’s Hunt!

It’s been just over five years since Sea of Thieves set sail and, in this time, we have always striven to maintain a safe, inclusive and fair environment for our players. This includes consistently allocating resources to combat both cheating and toxic behaviour.

In recent months we’ve seen an increase in player reports around cheating, and we wanted to take this opportunity to offer an honest and transparent view into our efforts in this space.

To paraphrase the Sea of Thieves Code of Conduct, Rare has a zero-tolerance approach to any form of in-game hacking or cheating, and any transgression can result in permanent enforcement action. Your reports alone have resulted in the termination of over 7,000 accounts in the last 12 months, with nearly 5,000 bans in the last six months of players confirmed to be cheating in-game.

Further to this, our security team have issued permanent bans to an additional 8,000 accounts in the last 12 months as a result of internal cheat detection and anti-tampering measures.

In addition to enforcement action, we also work diligently behind the scenes to detect and block newly developed and evolving cheats. This includes (but is not limited to) the cheats/hacks listed below:

• A hack that allowed players to move at an incredibly high rate of speed. Often used to evade attacks, chase down ships or transport items.
  
• A hack that allowed players to grab loot from a greater distance than intended.
  
• The ability to grant items to a player’s account without the prerequisites to do so – this also resulted in the termination of 4,500 accounts that were detected to be using this exploit.
  
• A cheat that enabled the ability to bucket water from your own ship directly into the hull of another ship.
  
• Blocking exploits used to earn gold in order to earn inordinately high scores within the Emissary Ledger.

We have always been clear around what we expect from our community, and we take reports of in-game toxicity incredibly seriously. Our moderation teams work tirelessly in this area to ensure that Sea of Thieves remains a welcoming and inclusive place.

In the past 12 months as a response to player reports, we have manually issued over 8,500 suspensions to accounts that have demonstrated negative behaviours towards fellow players. In addition to general rules around bad behaviour and non-discriminatory language, we have enabled more stringent action around the use of discriminatory language. For example, the use of hate speech will result in players receiving our harshest suspension and an immediate final warning.

We also run regular sweeps of both pet names and ship names that do not meet our community standards to issue enforcement action to players. In order to streamline this process, we recently added an in-game reporting feature (see May’s release notes) which allows players to report the gamertag, ship name or pet name of any player they come into contact with. These reports are then reviewed by our moderation team who can take any necessary action.

The items mentioned in this update are just a small selection of the actions and improvements our security and moderation teams regularly make. Rest assured, we are always listening to your invaluable feedback and will continue to use this to guide our efforts to bring meaningful change.

While stamping out cheating and toxicity remains a top priority within Rare, the overwhelming majority of the millions of players within our community help to maintain the safe and inclusive environment of which we are so proud, and to this majority we say thank you. We will never stop striving to maintain the integrity of the game you care so passionately about.

See you on the seas.

– The Sea of Thieves Security Team

Following a recent revisit to Sea of Thieves’ Captaincy system and changes made to streamline player progression (which we encourage you to read about in more detail), we thought it’d be well worth recapping the reasons why you might want to buy your own ship and set sail as a Captain in the first place. So here’s a handy reminder of the perks available to our Captains of Adventure!

Say goodbye to rentals – your ship is now your own, purchased with hard-earned gold and gaining its own history and reputation as you sail upon it. There’s a certain amount of pride that comes with adventuring on something that’s been by your side through naval battles and Kraken attacks, rather than something you set foot on for the very first time that day.

Conversely, the sweet sorrow of sinking is so much more painful when it’s your own vessel descending into the murky depths, the battle scars that persist across your ship’s hull when it’s hauled back to the surface serving as a sharp reminder of your defeat. However…

If the hull of your ship looks like a slice of Swiss cheese and you’d rather it was as smooth as the skin of a freshly picked banana, being a Captain can help with that too. Visit a shipwright at any Outpost and they’ll be able to make your ship look box-fresh and beautiful again!

“A good name is rather to be chosen than riches,” as they say, and as Captain you get to bestow the name of your choice upon your ship. Provided it meets the criteria, the Pirate Lord himself will officially recognise your chosen name, engraving it on the Ship’s Crest and stern the first time you set foot on deck.

Even better, other pirates who spy your ship from across the sea will be presented with a Ship’s Banner letting them know your ship’s name, and the name of the Captain at its helm. Will you choose a name that strikes fear into the heart of all who see it? One that taunts other pirates into attack? Or will you take the opportunity to make a joke so daft that those who see it are rendered helpless with laughter? That’s the great thing about being a Captain – the choice is yours.


Speaking of choice, Captain status also brings far greater control over how your ship looks. Channel your inner designer as you customise your chair, bed, table and more to create the Captain’s cabin of your dreams. Then you can further decorate your ship with Trinkets, be they knick-knacks purchased from the shipwright or Trophies unlocked via your daring deeds.

So that you don’t have to spend your precious plunder procurement time fiddling around in the Ship Customisation Chest, you can save the inner and outer customisations so that your ship looks ship-shape, shiny and ready to go at the start of each and every session.

Being a Captain comes with a certain amount of prestige, and you may find that people who ignored you before are now very interested in hearing what you have to say – and sell. The Sovereigns have set up their fancy marquees at every Outpost, and they’re so keen to make friends with pirate Captains that they’ll deliver your treasure to the Trading Companies on your behalf. They’ve even installed Rowboat docks and harpoons to make unloading treasure easy for anyone sailing on a Captained ship.

No more separating your Castaway’s Chests from your Coral Skulls and Cannonball Crates – hand it all in to your local Sovereign, then kick back and enjoy the view as the gold and reputation come rolling in.

It’s not just the Sovereigns, though. Being a Captain unlocks other bonus services that were previously unavailable to you. Instead of having to scour an Outpost’s barrels for supplies and lug anything you find across the island, onto your ship and below deck for storage, a quick visit to the shipwright’s shop (and a palm full of gold to sweeten the deal, of course) can see your barrels stocked up with cannonballs, meat, fruit, wood, bait and even throwables like firebombs and blunderbombs.

The shipwrights also sell special Captain’s Voyages to keep on the bookcase on your ship ¬– these span a variety of Trading Companies and give you more control over what your Voyage will entail and how long it will take you to complete.



And that wraps up our whistle-stop tour of Captaincy benefits! We hope it was enlightening to all those fresh-faced pirates who’ve taken their maiden voyage since Captaincy arrived back in Season Seven, and reinvigorating to any Captains who’ve already dabbled but still have much more to explore. As recent changes have made the rewards more achievable than ever, now’s the perfect time to do it!

Season Nine soldiers on and brings action aplenty over the weeks ahead! The Captain’s Week Event rolls out the recently promised Captaincy changes, and hot on its heels comes the latest time-limited trip through another story-driven Adventure. It’s also a particularly fine month for Pirate Emporium variety, and a fresh collection of fixes and balances rounds out June’s offerings!


Last month’s release notes are still available for recent content reference, or going further back to the start of Season Nine, the release notes from launch and the trailer above will get you up to speed on all its primary features. Right now though, the itemised breakdown of a brand new monthly update awaits. Ready... and away!

While the Sea of Thieves’ most curious crews have recently been chasing down Mystery clues, we’re now firmly back in story-driven territory for our next outing. A familiar face seeks assistance to recover a missing artefact as this twelfth time-limited Adventure begins!

Adventure 12 (June 22nd – July 6th)

• To start the Adventure, talk to Larinna to hear of a prominent figure in the affairs of pirates seeking help to hunt down a stolen treasure.
  
• Follow Larinna’s directions to the meeting point, find out what’s at stake and pledge to help recover the artefact before its power ends up in the wrong hands.
  
• This Adventure will take you through twists and tricky decisions, and you’re encouraged to stay on your guard for signs of the treachery that its name suggests...
  
• Pirates who fully complete this Adventure will earn an exclusive Title and a cosmetic reward to serve as a Memento of their quest.

Something for pirates of all persuasions this month! Brand new Ship’s Banners and a brooding Ship’s Crest, sweet pets for the treat lovers and Brawler Emotes for the bruisers, Big Bundles weighing down the shelves and the Beachcomber’s Bounty ship set back with weapons to match.

Season Nine Plunder Pass

• Anyone wishing to take full advantage of Season Nine rewards can still buy the Plunder Pass. Any rewards unlocked will become available upon purchase, so players who have raised their Renown throughout Season Nine can instantly see their hard work rewarded before the Season ends.
  
• This Season’s Plunder Pass offers early access to the complete Sting Tide Ship Collection and evolving Sting Tide Costume, and can be purchased at any time through the Pirate Log, Pirate Emporium or Steam Item Store.

Chocolatier’s Companion Pets

• Two strange new beasts have arrived on the Sea of Thieves for pet-loving pirates to adopt. Choose between a Parakeet or Alsatian and try to avoid leaving them out in the sun for too long!

Beachcomber’s Bounty Weapons

• A rugged survivalist managed to cobble together these four weapons in a cave, with nothing but the scraps of their smashed-up ship.

Beachcomber’s Bounty Ship Collection

• Previously featured in the Season Seven Plunder Pass, all parts of the Beachcomber Bounty Ship Collection are now available to purchase from the Pirate Emporium.

Ship’s Banners

• The Emporium now offers a selection of exclusive Ship’s Banners for Captains. Choose from the Royal Coronet, Reaver and Forgotten Temple designs to help your ship stand out when spied from afar!

Dark Warsmith Ship’s Crest

• Any ship’s name that evokes dread in all who read it is worthy of a Ship’s Crest to match.

Brawler Emote Bundle

• Even without a weapon at hand, a pirate should always be ready for some fisticuffs to defend their loot.

Lodestar Big Bundle

• Wreath yourself in skies and stars with this expansive Lodestar bundle. Includes the full ship collection, costume, weapons and spyglass, plus cat and parrot pets.

Dark Warsmith Big Bundle

• Join some of the Sea of Thieves’ most fearsome pirates with this heavy-duty Dark Warsmith bundle. Includes the full ship collection, costume and weapons.

Freebie Pail Percussion Emote

• Even when you have an actual drum tucked away, sometimes you just like to use what’s at hand.

Solid Gold Bundle (Store Only)

• Want to dazzle in any company? A pirate of true opulence should hoard this Solid Gold Bundle, which contains two Collector’s Pets: the Gold Curse Wildcat and Gold Curse Parakeet. Also includes 1000 Ancient Coins to spend in the Pirate Emporium and a free bonus of 25,000 gold. Head to the Steam Item Store to find out more.

Reduced Cannonball Knockback

• Players sailing a Galleon or Brigantine will find that the knockback from cannonball splash damage no longer propels them so far into the air, preventing them from being so easily sent overboard. However, they will still be knocked back and disorientated by the blast. This change makes the knockback experience consistent across all ship sizes.

Captains of Adventure Balancing

• A large number of Pirate and Ship Milestones have been rebalanced to make gaining Classes easier, and any progress already made will automatically be converted, potentially boosting players to higher Classes.
  
• The number of Classes required to buy the four tiers of Trinkets has been significantly reduced.
  
• The cost for saving cosmetics to a Captained ship has been removed, and this function is now free.
  
• The gold cost for purchasing ship decorations and Trinkets has been significantly reduced.
  
• Any Captain’s Beds that unlock through Milestones will now unlock at Class 2 instead of Class 5.

Video Support

• Players logging in to Sea of Thieves will find that the front end menu now has the ability to display video content. This will serve the latest trailers and content directly in-game, and once watched or skipped will return to the beloved Map Table animation.
  
• Players will now also find video content within the What’s New section of the front end menu, which can be browsed and rewatched on demand.

Aristocrat Hairstyles

• The urge to style yourself exquisitely needn’t stop when you reach the top of your head, as these additional hairstyles become available from Outpost shops.

Captain’s Week (June 15th – June 22nd)

• To encourage pirates to test the waters of Captaincy and explore the permanent improvements introduced this month, the Captain’s Week Event comes with a whole package of perks!
  
• Enjoy heavy discounts on ship purchases, boosted rewards when sailing on a Captained ship, new weapons to earn by using the Sovereigns’ services and a Pirate Emporium sale full of bargains for keen Captains.
  
• Visit the Captain’s Week Event page for more, and discover details on the permanent Captaincy changes in the dedicated news article.

Twitch Drops

• Continue to unlock cosmetics throughout Season Nine with Twitch Drops! Stay tuned to Sea of Thieves social channels to find out when Twitch Drops will be active for Partnered streamers, allowing players to earn a selection of items from the Eastern Winds Sapphire set.
  
• Find out how to link your accounts and more on our dedicated Twitch Drops page.

Gameplay

• Seagulls above barrels no longer prevent Megalodons from appearing across the seas, bringing the frequency of Megalodon encounters back to intended levels.
  
• Letters of Recommendation and Ritual Skull Voyages from Larinna have now been refreshed, and players can purchase twice the usual amount to cover those missed last month.

Battle for the Sea of Thieves

• The Hourglass is no longer interactable after a ship has been sunk, or scuttled by the crew.
  
• Crews losing a battle should now consistently be sent to the sinking wreck sequence and moved to a new location.

Captains of Adventure

• Rowboats that become damaged while docked to a ship will now visually show the damage prior to being undocked.
  
• The Pirate Milestone for Rowboats Docked will now increase when a Rowboat is docked to your ship by any player.

Pirate Emporium

• The icon for the Night Wulf Eye of Reach is now centered.
  
• The Crab Dab Emote and Monkey Dance Emote are no longer showing their sale prices.
  
• The Cutler Beckett Costume Set has now been updated to show the correct description of the item.

Visual and Audio

• When fishing, the names of fish that surface will now be shown consistently.
  
• The Flag of the Bristling Barnacle can now be equipped on a Brigantine.
  
• Pirates’ hands no longer intersect with the Order of Souls and Merchant Alliance Shovels.
  
• When approaching the location of an active Bounty Quest, the music will now consistently switch to the appropriate theme.

Text and Localisation

• The action of delivering, giving and selling items is now more clearly translated when playing in the Korean language.
  
• ‘The Legendary Storyteller’ – The Quest Book now correctly references Port Merrick.
  
• ‘Dark Brethren’ – A typo in the initial notification when starting the Tale from a checkpoint has been corrected.

Performance and Stability

• Improved server performance when large numbers of floating items are left at sea.
  
• Improved server stability to avoid instances of players being disconnected from their session.
  
• Steam players encountering a file corruption issue will now be shown an error message on launch rather than becoming stuck in a loop.

Reduced Server Performance

• Players may experience scenarios where they encounter ping spikes at random while playing, resulting in rubberbanding or client stutters. While improvements were most recently released in update 2.7.3, the team continue to work on further improvements for future updates.

Ranged and Melee Weapon Hit Detection

• In areas of intense action, players may find themselves firing shots or landing strikes that do not cause damage to their targets. While small improvements continue to be delivered during our regular updates, we are continuing to investigate and identify further improvements to the player combat experience.

To learn more about known issues in Sea of Thieves currently being tracked and their status, head over to our Known Issues support site article.

Download Size:

• Steam: 5.84 GB