Black Market and Letters of Recommendation Update

Doesn’t time fly? We already have two Monthly Content Updates under our belt with another due to release in, yes, you guessed it, September! The team is currently working hard to get this out to players, and it’s set to shake up Duke’s role in the game quite significantly.

Senior Designer Chris Davies is part of the team spearheading our new approach to content releases, and he’s pulled together an explanation of exactly what will be happening with our old friend Duke next month. Over to you, Chris!

Hi all! I wanted to inform everyone of some changes that we’ll be making to Duke’s Voyages and shop, starting with the next content update coming in September.

As you’ll know, Duke has been buddying up with the Trading Companies over recent months in order to secure investment for reasons he was keeping close to his chest. We can now reveal that he has used this investment to launch a Black Market shop, offering a wide variety of cosmetics for you to purchase with Doubloons and gold!

Each month, Duke will be offering the following kinds of cosmetics:

Variants of previously time-limited or exclusive sets

In September, Duke will be offering Black Market-exclusive versions of several Bone Crusher items. As many of you will remember, Bone Crusher cosmetics were previously only available for a limited period of time last year. Duke has managed to get his hands on some revamped versions of these items that everyone will be able to purchase.

Duke has also found himself in possession of updated versions of some other limited sets that will be revealed over the coming months.

These items will be on sale for Doubloons.

Brand new additions to existing sets

Over the coming months, Duke will offer items from sets that, until now, have not been possible to fully complete.

These will be on sale for Doubloons.

Brand new sets

Also planned for the next few months, Duke has managed to secure some brand new sets that will be sold exclusively within his Black Market.

These will be on sale for Doubloons.

Variants of Outpost shop items

Duke has also sourced some revamped versions of items that can be commonly found in the Outpost shops. In September, he’s offering up fetching new variants of the Ocean Crawler weapons, with more great items lined up for the coming months.

These will be on sale for gold.

Returning Items

Don’t fret if you miss out on any of the above items in any given month, as Duke intends to bring all his Black Market goods back into circulation in future. He’ll reveal more about this at a future date.

Additional items

As before, Duke will continue to sell Letters of Recommendation and gold bags for Doubloons.

The cosmetic items available within the Black Market will change each month, so it will always be worth checking in on Duke to see what he’s currently selling. If you miss out on any items, don’t fret – it won’t be your last opportunity to purchase them from Duke.

Alongside the new Black Market, Duke is changing how he wants to do business with his pirate customers. In the past, he’s asked you to pay Doubloons to embark on his Voyages, and you’d need to complete these Voyages before you could purchase the items he had to offer. This is now changing.

From September, Duke will no longer be asking you to pay Doubloons to acquire his Voyages – you can grab them free of charge. In fact, his Voyages will generally offer you a way of freely earning Doubloons, which should help you gather enough to purchase whatever items you want from his Black Market. As before, you’ll also be able to earn Doubloons for completing Commendations that we’ll continue to add each month.

This all sounds great, right? What’s the catch? Well, along with these changes in how you earn Doubloons, there’ll also be a change to the availability of each Trading Company’s Letter of Recommendation. Starting from the September update, players will only be able to purchase one Letter of Recommendation per Company, per Monthly Content Update. These will continue to cost 30 Doubloons apiece.

By allowing you to freely earn Doubloons by embarking on Voyages for Duke, we’ve had to make this change to prevent Company activities from being bypassed while reputation is endlessly boosted in other ways. We want your choice of how you devote your time in Sea of Thieves to always be meaningful and driven by what’s most important to you each month – be it embarking on Voyages for Duke for Doubloons or serving the Trading Companies for reputation and gold.

We wanted to give you as much warning of this change as possible and the context surrounding it so that you can plan accordingly. We hope you’ll agree with us that it’s a worthwhile trade-off. In the meantime, you can still purchase as many Letters of Recommendation as you can afford! Or you could save your Doubloons for the Black Market…

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    - Chris Davies, Senior Designer