Last week, Rare promised to introduce a host of new features to Sea of Thieves soon, and that patch is finally rolling out to Xbox One and PC players. Today's 400 MB update brings with it open and closed crew, resource sharing, numerous bug fixes, and much more.
Updated May 16, 2018: Following a high number of reported "AllmondBeard" errors, Rare has announced emergency maintenance on Sea of Thieves is underway. Following this maintenance, open/closed crews and invisible underwater Gamertags will be removed temporarily.
The most prominent changes are listed below. You can read about the new features and bug fixes separately.
New features
- Players now have two crew type options available to them. Open crews work the same way you're used to. Closed crews allow a player to begin a game, allowing friends to join in when they're available. Eventually you'll be able to switch between open and closed crews on the fly.
- You can now share items with players by holding out resources.
- When swimming, Gamertags and titles are no longer visible to encourage stealth gameplay.
- The Imperial Sovereign Blunderbuss, Pistol, Sails, Hull and Liveries are now available to purchase at the Ancient Isles.
- New sound effects for close fire and reloading the Flintlock Pistol.
- Prices for the Castaway Bilge Rat weapons and liveries have now been reduced. Those who already bought them will be issued refunds for the difference.
- The chances of finding more valuable rewards has been increased.
- Some icons and health bar animations have been modified.
Bug fixes
- Players should no longer experience details of their pirate looking different from their initial selection.
- Players should no longer experience delayed achievements and commendations.
- Cannonball, wooden plank, and banana crates no longer always spawn empty.
- Frame rates will now be more consistent during ship battles, sword fights, and Kraken encounters due to optimizations.
It's great to see that the team is listening to players and implementing meaningful changes. Hopefully the updates will include a lot of content so that it brings players back and keeps them engaged.
Sea of Thieves is an exploration-based pirate game which launched on March 20, 2018. Rare is known for many famous franchises including Banjo-Kazooie, Conker, and GoldenEye. However, in recent years, the team focused on developing Kinect games for Xbox One and Xbox 360. This was a curious decision, so when Phil Spencer became Head of Xbox in 2014, he assigned Rare a new project. Sea of Thieves is a shift for the developer and a concept the team hasn't tackled before.
The game is currently available at retailers for $59.99 or as part of the monthly $9.99 Xbox Game Pass subscription. The game features Xbox One X enhancements and Xbox Play Anywhere support.
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