Sea of Thieves Round-Up: February 2021

February was another first for Sea of Thieves: the first time we've supported the second month of a Season! Okay, that's not as impressive as the first time actually launching a Season, but they can't all be first months – that's not how seasons work, you'd need 12 of them, we asked a meteorologist. Anyway. There was a solid delivery of new stuff to support overarching Seasonal progression plus new videos, merch, freebies and unending social shenanigans. Commence rounding things up!

Content Update

Even though the February update didn't arrive until the 18th, February actually sneaked in two Events. That was thanks to Season One landing late in January, so the start date of its own Champion of Souls challenge set rolled into the opening days of February. Which meant that no sooner had you finished helping the Order of Souls collect Soul Fragments by battering some ghosts and skeletons to pieces than The Hunter's Call were hassling you to rustle up some Splashtails and Islehoppers in the Festival of Fishing. Stops you hanging around in taverns all day though, eh?

There was also a February update to the Pirate Emporium which included Reaper's Heart and Lovestruck additions for Valentine's Day, the Rogue Tinkerer collection for that Sea of Thieves deranged inventor look you may have never known you wanted, another freebie emote and of course the Sails of Hope in support of Great Ormond Street Hospital Children's Charity. The Outpost shopkeepers pulled their socks up too (socks not available for purchase, insufficiently piratical) and did a better job of restocking their shelves this month, and the usual pile of tweaks and quality of life adjustments rounded out the list. What list? This list: the exhaustive February update release notes.

News and Features

The month began with word that Sea of Thieves Monopoly and other merch goodness had started shipping out, and more was added to the store as the month went on including some lovely Year of the Ox shirts to follow on from January's Lunar Festival in-game gear. For reasons of romance, February also seemed like an appropriate time to tie in with the Pulse Red Xbox controller and release 'The Passion of Souls' as our latest official Sea of Thieves track. Meanwhile, the addition of Japanese localisation to the game prompted Xbox Japan to run a special monster hunt event, with prizes featuring some sublimely stylised artwork.

On the SoT site itself, aside from updates to the usual suspects like Season One's landing page and Events Hub, February's other major addition was the Sea of Thieves Partner Directory – a chunky endeavour listing all our Partnered streamers and video creators to ensure you've always got someone to watch, whether or not Twitch Drops are active. Which sets up a breathtakingly fluid segue into...

Videos and Streams

Videos! Plenty to go around. There was February's Pirate Emporium trailer (along with January's, which again due to a quirk of timing came strolling along in early February). There was a reveal trailer for the glorious GOSH Sails of Hope. There was another one for the Festival of Fishing which, before any of that, was also discussed in the latest episode of Sea of Thieves News along with some recent highlights and Season planning teases from EP Joe.

Weekly Streams, on the other hand, were finally steered into port for a breather after two years, although occasional Guest Streams will continue to be a thing – as we showed by inviting shanty sensations The Longest Johns along for two hours of spontaneous singing, hunting of Lost Shipments and nattering about the popularity explosion of shanties in 2021. Twitch Drops also continued with two more handouts of Gilded Phoenix goodies, with a third on the way in March before Season Two brings new delights. It'll be a surprise! Literally no idea what they are yet!

Social Channels

Our latest custom-designed batch of printable Valentine's cards including a hot-blooded Flameheart were one February social highlight, as was blazing past the first 10k followers on Sea of Thieves' new Instagram channel. On Instagram and Twitter as usual were our regular #SoTShot contests, for which this month we requested the pleasure of your Company – and the Merchant Alliance theme turned up some handsome winning entries before The Hunter's Call theme coincided nicely with Festival of Fishing. Ancientscale action shots and Stormfish selfies, you know you love it.

February's reputation as a well-behaved four-week month (most of the time) ensured four each of our other regular hashtags: #SundayVibes took us on a timely trip to Snuggler's Bay, showed us dawn breaking over the Sails of Hope and delivered a poignant concertina rendition of 'We Shall Sail Together' followed by a jaunty banjo airing of 'Bosun Bill'. Meanwhile #TriviaTuesday made it rain droplets of sweet, sweet fact concerning the Flame of Souls, Mysterious Notes, the Order of Souls and that fisherman's frenemy, the humble Splashtail.

Other prime social banter: requests for Ferryman nicknames, a summoning of #SoTSelfies, declarations of bait and fruity trolling on #NationalPizzaDay.

Now we're making strides into March, and if only there was a suitable synonym for brisk walking. To prepare for the content drop due in this last leg of Season One you can spy on us at all the usual social locales: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram,  YouTube, Twitch and the official Forums and Discord server. And TikTok! We do Sea of Thieves TikToks now. What a time to be alive/skeletal/ghostly/dead.

Previously in 2021
Sea of Thieves Round-Up: January 2021