Release Notes

September’s Sea of Thieves update has arrived! Entitled Smuggler’s Fortune, this latest bundle of brand new content introduces another set of new Voyages to help fill those Doubloon coffers. But there’s more to this story, so be sure to check out our latest Content Update trailer!

Yes, 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.

• Arena Cross Play – Xbox players now have an option in the main settings menu before jumping into a game session to enable an Xbox controller preference for Arena matchmaking. This will search for Xbox players using controllers and attempt to match you with players who have also selected this option (but if not enough players are found with this preference, you will be moved to a mixed-platform game so that you can still get into the action). If you set this preference to ‘Off’, you will be matched with all players including those on PC and any Xbox players using a mouse and keyboard.

• Meg Head in the Tavern – During your time in The Arena’s Glorious Sea Dogs Tavern, you will now see the magnificent trophy head of the Megalodon that DeMarco himself defeated!

• Arena Non-Verbal Messages – While inside The Arena, non-verbal pirate phrases have been revised to provide more tactical use in Arena contests.

• Arena Welcome Message – When joining The Arena by going into the Tavern or straight into a contest, players will now be shown a welcome message informing them of their team name, colour and iconography.

• Rejoin Your Game Session – When disconnected from the game due to a sudden exit, game crash or network issue, players are now offered the chance to rejoin their game session once they return to the main menu. Game sessions are now kept alive for a short period of time after the last crew member disconnects, providing a 10-minute window to return to the session without losing progress.

• Aggressive Skeleton Ships – When out sailing the world, crews will once again hear eerie sounds from the depths as aggressive Skeleton Ships breach alongside them to attack. Skeleton Sloops have entered the fray too, ensuring different crew sizes encounter an appropriate challenge! When sailing on a Sloop, crews should no longer encounter an aggressive Skeleton Galleon and will instead find themselves attacked by a Skeleton Sloop. Brigantine crews have a chance to encounter both Skeleton Sloops and Skeleton Galleons, while Galleon crews will always encounter the most challenging Skeleton Galleon.

• Roaming Skeleton Sloops – Skeleton Sloops have now been seen roaming the seas outside Skeleton Ship battles. A challenging clash for Sloop crews or a potentially easy target for larger crews – either way, head out there and claim those rewards!

• Storage Crates – There is now a chance to find washed-up Storage Crates out there in the world. These crates can be carried and used to store anything that you could put into a barrel!

• External Sea Dogs Tavern Challenge Route – In Adventure, if you head to the Glorious Sea Dogs Tavern in the centre of the world, you can find a new jumping challenge route. Head to the top of the tavern through the staircase and track your best times or try to beat your crewmates by ringing the bells at each end. The Challenge Route can even be attempted backwards to ramp up the difficulty!

• ‘Shores of Gold’ Final Cutscene – After breaking through the Shroud, uncovering the Shores of Gold’s secrets and fighting their way through the caverns, crews skilled enough to defeat the fabled foe will experience a new final cutscene showcasing their epic journey.

• Blunderbuss Knockback Balancing – We’ve reduced the range at which a Blunderbuss shot will apply a knockback to a rival player, so you now must be much closer to get that knockback. The distance a player is knocked back by the shot remains the same!

• Gunpowder Keg Hit Detection – Improvements have been made to ensure hitting gunpowder kegs at range is more consistent with ranged weapons.

• Explosive Damage on Ships – When ships are affected by explosions (gunpowder kegs, volcanic rocks etc.) they now use a new more realistic damage model using an inner and outer blast radius. This new setup ensures that greater damage is applied closer to the explosion, and less damage further away.

• Harpoon Aim Support – Firing a harpoon at a player or treasure Item now has a much greater chance of connecting with your intended target, even while on a moving ship!

• ‘Wild Rose’ Music Box – Players can now interact with the music box in the ‘Wild Rose’ Tall Tale in order to play the Wild Rose Theme.

• Reaper’s Chest VFX – The Reaper’s Chest now has a new smoky visual effect when discovered in the world, and the light pillar has had a further effect pass to ensure its visibility at all times of day/night.

General

• Joining a crew located close to an active Skeleton Fort should no longer cause pirates to lose their ability to interact with the world.

• Players killed by falling lava rocks and their immense splash damage will now correctly be offered the red light from the Flames of Fate on the Ferry of the Damned.

• Sword attack animations will now correctly play when under the effects of venom and being attacked by skeletons.

• Players enabling ‘Replace Gamertags’ should no longer see true gamertags on ship map controls and Voyage banners.

• Players enabling ‘Replace Gamertags’ should no longer have the chance to see a debug gamertag when crews migrate to their server.

• Players enabling ‘Replace Gamertags’ while in proximity to multiple players will now correctly scramble all gamertags in view.

• Migrating to a new server while your ship mast is down will no longer cause your ship to act as if the mast is up once migration is complete.

• Players joining a server, should no longer have a chance of spawning on the Shores of Gold.

• ‘Hunter of Wildsplashes’ Commendation now correctly awards the ‘Hunter of Wildsplashes’ Title.

• Players should once again be able to repair their mast after having their mast downed and being hit with a Riggingball.

• Wielding a glowing item no longer causes lighting around the player to change.

• Movement and emote animations should no longer begin to freeze when eight players come together and animate simultaneously.

• Switching between Arena and Adventure rapidly on the front end will no longer cause a drop in framerate.

• Interacting with a barrel then leaving the game idle will no longer cause the UI to become unresponsive on your return.

• Assigning different keys to ‘Turn Previous Page, Turn Next Page’ should correctly unbind any previously bound keys. These options can no longer be bound to the same keys as movement.

• Changing the Global settings in the ‘All Other Crews’ menu should now correctly display this setting change when viewing each individual player without needing to close and reopen the menu.

• The global ‘All Other Crews’ settings should no longer display as ‘YES’ when they are set to ‘NO’. This was a visual issue as the settings were configured incorrectly.

• Corrected grammar issues on Reaper’s Chest non-verbal messages.

• Players will no longer hear oar splashes when rowing the Rowboat on dry land.

• When a Sloop has been emptied of water, splashing footstep SFX should no longer be heard.

• The Mercenary Wheel now casts a shadow.

The Arena

• ‘Reduce Held Interactions’ toggle now supports handing in Sea Dog chests in The Arena.

• Players can once again interact with the Pirate Code in the Sea Dogs Tavern.

• Players are now unable to interact with NPCs during server migration.

• Contest scoreboards will now display all crews’ scores formatted based on your locale consistently in all places. 

• Players unable to matchmake when joining The Arena will now return to the lobby and stay in their crew, allowing them to retry.

• Signing out of your profile while ‘Searching the Seas’ for an Arena lobby will no longer cause the game to crash.

• Text shown on The Arena intro should no longer be cut off.

• Following migration to a new tavern, the cannon and wheel in the Sea Dogs Tavern become usable once again.

Tall Tales – Shores of Gold 

• ‘Stars of a Thief’ – Migrating before placing the Star Jewels into the statue will now correctly open the statue, revealing the totem.

Environment

• Loot should no longer spawn in an inaccessible place inside the Molten Sands Fortress vault.

• Resolved collision issues preventing items from being dropped and retrieved inside the Order of Souls tent on Galleon’s Grave Outpost. 

• Resolved incorrect collision on Fetcher’s Rest volcano.

• Players should no longer get stuck between rocks in certain areas of the treasure room on the Shores of Gold.

• Players should no longer get stuck in the chasm on the Shores of Gold.

• Players should no longer get stuck under the island at Lone Cove.

• Players should no longer get stuck between rocks on Sharkbait Cove.

• Players should no longer get stuck in the rafters of the Three Paces East Seapost.

• Players should no longer be ‘safe teleported’ when walking between large rocks on Kraken’s Fall.

• Players should no longer become stuck behind the Gold Hoarder tent on Morrow’s Peak Outpost.

• Resolved a LOD issue on large boulders found in the world.

• Resolved a LOD issue when viewing textures inside Wanda’s Hideout.

• Textures should now render correctly when sailing around Sunken Grove.

• Sailing through an area close to the Isle of Last Words should no longer change the lighting levels.

• When moving around the ship, waves will no longer sometimes appear to flicker.

• Players should hear more consistent audio when encountering spike traps on the Shores of Gold.

• Resolved a clipping issue on Fort ladders on Keel Haul Fort.

• Resolved a gap between rocks on Ashen Reaches.

• Tall Tales – Commendations Showing as Incomplete – Some players may find that after completing Shores of Gold Commendations and receiving their rewards, the Commendations still show as incomplete.

• Combat – Inconsistent Aim Down Sights or Blocking – When exiting a sprint, immediately attempting to aim a gun or block with a sword can result in the action not triggering and the weapon returning to a wielded state.

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

Download size:

Xbox One: 4.39 GB
Xbox One X: 6.78 GB
Windows 10: 6.78 GB

XBOX INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS CAN BE FOUND HERE.

PC INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS CAN BE FOUND HERE.

You can discuss these release notes in the Forums here.

You can leave your feedback on the game in general here.

Looking for new crewmates? We've got a bunch of places you can visit to seek out like-minded pirates, so sail on over to these official Sea of Thieves hangouts:

• Forums
• Xbox Club
• Verified Discord