One Million Pirate Legends – In Stats!
Posted in: Announcements on 05 Apr 2022
Welcome to Legends Week, everyone! As we’ve now passed the milestone of one million players who have reached Pirate Legend status, we thought it was a good a time as any to hold a big, week-long bash to celebrate our most dedicated sailors.
A quick reminder if you’re unsure of what a Pirate Legend is: it’s a player who has managed to hit rank 50 with at least three of Sea of Thieves’ Trading Companies. You’ll usually spot them by the purple and green outfits and their propensity to sail circles around you when you engage them in a sea battle.
With the Pirate Legend population now mirroring that of a small city, we thought we’d pull out our comically large magnifying glass to examine the stats behind our cohort of legendary corsairs, and see what really makes a Pirate Legend. All these facts and figures are accurate up to March 31st, 2022 – so apologies if you screamed in with some amazing Pirate Legend stat on April 1st.
Although more than 25 million sailors had set sail on the Sea of Thieves by October 2021, under 4% of them have so far been inducted into the hallowed ranks of Athena’s Fortune. So it’s quite the rare achievement, reserved for truly top-shelf buccaneers. Now, calculators and jotters at the ready – we’ve got figures to pore over!
Let’s first consider the time it takes to reach Pirate Legend. On average, most players hit this Legendary milestone after around 192 hours of hard graft. Obviously, there are many pirates who pride themselves on how quickly they can hit Pirate Legend, while others like to take the approach that it’s a marathon, not a sprint. So far, the longest recorded journey to Pirate Legend took one chilled corsair 2,664 hours – around 111 days! We salute your devotion to taking it easy.
Should you want to see someone try to hit Pirate Legend as fast as they can, be sure to tune in to our new Path to Legend series on Sea of Thieves TV, where the intrepid HitboTC attempts to get to this glorious position as fast as possible. Will he manage it over the course of the series?
In terms of how players spend those (roughly) 192 hours on the way to Pirate Legend, most take the conventional route of raising their reputation with the Gold Hoarders, Order of Souls and Merchant Alliance. A single pirate managed to do it by levelling up their reputation with the Sea Dogs, The Hunter’s Call and The Reaper’s Bones. We wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of their broadside…
Some players also manage to level their Trading Company rep without completing a single Voyage, with 1,518 players favouring this more chaotic route to Pirate Legend. But if you plan to follow a more well-worn path to Legend status, it tends to take our pirates an average of 90 Voyages alongside all their other day-to-day buccaneering activity, so plan accordingly!
How about those lonely Sloop captains who shun the comradery of their fellow sailors? Well, it turns out they’re as elusive as they are antisocial, as only 50 Pirate Legends have made the climb entirely solo. On the flip side, 2,001 of our Pirate Legends have never sailed without a companion, social butterflies that they are. In terms of how many unique companions our Pirate Legends have had on their journeys, seven is the lucky average. How magnificent these seven are may, of course, vary.
You’re naturally going to cross blades and blunderbusses with enemy pirates during your long and winding road to Pirate Legend, and players vanquish an average of 76 other pirates in doing so. Their own kill/death ratio is ever so slightly in their favour, with players making around 74 trips to the Ferry of the Damned on their journey. Spare a thought for one very persistent Pirate Legend who died a grand total of 6,239 times before achieving those purple and green stripes.
There’s also one Pirate Legend who seems to be moonlighting as a butcher, racking up 10,751 kills (!) on their climb to the heights of pirate fame. We’re equal parts impressed and terrified. To balance out the bloodshed, there is a contingent of pacifist pirates who choose peace over violence, with 78,411 sailors not slaying a single one of their fellow freebooters before becoming Legends. Also, congratulations to all the pirates who remained alive and kicking while striving to become Legend – 53,955 of them dodged a visit to the Ferry of the Damned, and long may they stay hale and hearty.
Finally, how about the truly devoted corsairs – those who have reached the pinnacle of Pirate Legend, the apex of Athena’s Fortune, the tippest of tops in the nautical world? Only 30,908 people have reached that shining peak of rank 20 with Athena’s Fortune, making it an exclusive club within an exclusive club. We hope those 30,908 are ready to go again when the Athena’s Fortune level cap is raised to 30 later this Season!
And that’s our analysis of the myriad of stats making up a million-strong troop of Pirate Legends. If you have any impressive stats of your own to share, let us know on social media! And keep your eyes locked right here on the Sea of Thieves website and on our social channels for more Legends Week fun – including an in-depth look at the upcoming Pirate Legend-exclusive Voyage, coming later in Season Six!
