Release Notes

Heed the call in Season 15, which brings a wealth of new incentives to The Hunter’s Call while introducing new wildlife both harmless and hostile. For an overview of the fierce features due to roll out over the course of this Season, head to our dedicated Season 15 page!

Hunting Spear

• Players can now wield trusty hunting spears which can be aimed and thrown, dealing damage to roaming wildlife and other players alike. Spears can also be retrieved when embedded in a solid surface and thrown again.

• Hunting spears can even be loaded into a ship’s cannons for extra power and fired at players or other ships. When fired into a ship, the spear will lodge in the hull, causing a small damage hole. Removing it will increase the hole size, so be prepared to repair!

• Hunting parties looking to stock up their ship should visit The Hunter’s Call representatives, who will sell hunting spears up to a limit of five. Hunting spears can also be discovered washed up on shores, within shipwrecks and among the rewards earned when defeating Skeleton Ships.

Ambient Wildlife

• While sailing the open seas, crews may now find they are joined by seagulls who fly alongside the ship as it sails. These birds will disperse if they sense danger!

• While out exploring islands, players may now stumble upon small lizards basking in the daytime sun.

• Crews creeping into a dark cave may disturb a flock of bats, who will promptly flee from their hiding spot.

• Players exploring the shallows near islands may now come face to face with a smack of jellyfish. While these floating jellies may seem threatening, fear not, they’re harmless!

Wild Seas Commendations and Rewards

• With the introduction of the hunting spear, new Commendations have been added within the Reputation tab to challenge aspiring hunters. Explore the new challenges under Wild Seas to unlock weapons from the Eternal Hunt set.

Fishing Voyage Improvements

• The Fishing Maps provided on Captain’s Fishing Voyages now provide crews with only a partial piece of the island near the fishing location, making it more of a challenge to locate the fishing spots.

• Crews on a Fishing Voyage will no longer find they are attacked by emergent threats on the island with the fishing spots.

Ancient Megalodon Balancing

• The Feared Redmaw and Barnacled Dread now take reduced damage from a blowpipe’s Poison Dart.

Performance Improvements

• The Sloop, Brigantine and Galleon have been rebuilt behind the scenes, breaking up each ship into smaller parts, allowing them to be loaded in sections by the server. This work will provide server performance improvements when ships are created at the start of a session, in addition to ships arriving on a server after diving or naturally through server migration.

• Performance optimisations have been made to Storage Crates and Resource Barrels, addressing spikes in framerate when repeatedly interacting with their inventories over longer sessions.

• Performance improvements have been made to the way treasure items floating in water are managed across the server.

• Further performance improvements have been made to how Trinkets are loaded when approaching Captained ships. Trinkets are now gradually loaded in over time and will only fully load when much closer to the ship, further reducing the performance impact when approaching ships at sea.

• A new management system is now in operation on the server, controlling the activation of certain events and encounters to ensure that the server has the necessary resources to safely operate the activity. Encounters with an emergent Megalodon are now controlled by this system, with further events to follow in future updates.

• In addition to the above areas, this update includes a range of smaller optimisations to game performance that provide improvements across the broader experience.

• Players navigating to Frame Rate Lock within the Video settings will now find supporting information clearly advising them to lock their frame rate for a more consistent experience.

Lifting Outpost Trap Restrictions

• Traps can now be placed in and around the Outpost taverns, allowing crews to lie in wait for unsuspecting players.

• Players triggering a nearby trap when arriving in the tavern at the start of their game session will remain unharmed and not suffer damage while ‘waking up’.

Grapple Gun Animations

• Players grappling to a location will now have a unique animation, showing their pirate flailing as they’re pulled through the air.

Show off your personal style with purchases from the Pirate Emporium! Pick up exclusive cosmetics such as ship liveries, costumes, weapons, pets and emotes using your Ancient Coins, purchasable with real money. Head to the Pirate Emporium page to browse and buy the latest additions!

New Items – Now in Stock!

• Lightbearer Ship Collection and Ship’s Crest

• Lightbearer Weapon Bundle

• Lightbearer Costume Set

• Mighty Lightbearer Flag, Hull, Collector’s Figurehead and Collector’s Sails

• Silent Lightbearer Flag, Hull, Collector’s Figurehead and Collector’s Sails

• Wise Lightbearer Flag, Hull, Collector’s Figurehead and Collector’s Sails

• Gold Curse Toucan

• Dire Dark Warsmith Weapons: Double Barrel Pistol, Throwing Knives, Grapple Gun and Blowpipe

• Pet Pig Outfits: Sovereign, Bilge Rat, Sea Dog, Pirate Legend and Ghost

• Over Here! Emote (free!)

New Outpost Stock!

• The Outposts now stock equipment, instruments and a range of weapons from the Azure Scout set, available for purchase at their respective shops.

Pirate Emporium Browsing

• When browsing bundles within the Pirate Emporium, players can now navigate directly to the ‘Browse All’ menu from a shortcut at the bottom of the screen.

Emetophobia Support

• Players who suffer from emetophobia (fear of vomit/vomiting) can now turn off all vomit-related audio effects from the Audio settings, including sounds made by players and pets.

Gameplay

• Players grappling to a ship’s ladder should no longer find themselves temporarily appearing in a different location.

• Items dropped in various areas of Siren Shrines and Treasuries will no longer float up to unreachable locations.

• Items dropped into shallow pools on islands will now float properly instead of hovering high above the surface.

• Reaper’s Chests hidden within shipwrecks will once again show their tell-tale beacon from across the seas, and no longer require a crew to approach before they become visible.

• All blowpipes have been reviewed and their aiming improved to ensure shots now align with the tip of the blowpipe when fired.

• Players can no longer grapple treasure through the open storeroom windows of Sea Forts.

• Tall Tale items from locations within the Sea of the Damned can no longer be brought back to the Sea of Thieves.

• Melee attacks from a throwing knife below the deck of the ship should no longer appear to hit an invisible surface in various locations.

• The Dance Off Danger Commendation will now progress when players use a Bone Caller to target Obsidian Skeletons.

The Hunter’s Call Trading Company

• Captains can now place up to five Banner of the Hunter and Merrick Shipmate Trinkets on their ship once unlocked.

• The Orb of Secrets can now be sold to The Hunter’s Call for the same price as other Trading Companies.

• Hunter’s Call treasure sold to The Reaper’s Bones no longer increases progress towards Call of the Hunter Commendations.

Fishing Voyages

• Treasured Fish can now be grappled out of other players’ hands.

• Players with a Treasured Fish on their line should no longer see the fish reappear in the water when crouching or swapping items before retrieving it.

• The fishing spots at Isle of Last Words have been moved further away from the shore to ensure crews can fish successfully.

• Treasured Fish now move naturally when swimming towards the fishing float.

• Frenzied fishing spots now fade away once all fish are caught and a Voyage is completed.

• Fishing spot visual effects no longer appear inside the ship’s hull if the ship stops on the fishing spot.

Ancient Megalodons

• Commendation progress for defeating Ancient Megalodons is now awarded to all crews participating in the encounter by dealing damage, not just the crew that lands the final hit.

• While attacks by Ancient Megalodons can occasionally overturn a ship, the frequency of this occurrence has now been reduced.

• Ancient Megalodons should now be able to navigate smoothly around the Fort of the Dammed.

• Defeating an Ancient Megalodon will now be recorded in the Captain’s Logbook.

• Firing a Grapple Gun at the Barnacled Dread will no longer cause the tether to attach to a distant location.

• Crews can now progress the Who Needs a Bigger Boat? Commendation when attacking an Ancient Megalodon with a Cannon Rowboat.

• Captains defeating an Ancient Megalodon will now progress The Feared Pirate Milestones and Ship Milestones.

• Crews defeating an Ancient Megalodon should now consistently find the Hunter of the Feared Redmaw and Hunter of the Barnacled Dread Commendations progress correctly.

Pet Pigs

• Players stroking a pig while jumping will now appear to stroke the pig correctly after landing and the pig will remain in the correct position.

• The nameplate for a pet pig will now be shown above the pig.

• A pet pig’s shadow will now be shown when holding it.

Performance and Stability

• Crews performing multiple server migrations during a single session should no longer experience rubberbanding and server desync.

• Further improvements have been made to game stability to reduce scenarios where players unexpectedly exit the game or become disconnected from their session.

User Interface

• Players who were previously unable to save changes to their game settings should now find that these are saved consistently when leaving a session, and no longer need to be changed at the start of a new session.

• Players attempting to open their game settings and the Quest Table at the same time should no longer become stuck.

• Using the back button while navigating the Pet Chest with a virtual keyboard on consoles will no longer cause the menu to become stuck, preventing further input.

• Browsing many pages of the spotlighted sections in the Pirate Emporium will no longer cause the menu to become unresponsive.

• In multiple areas of the experience where a player’s gamertag is shown within a menu, a shortcut button can now be used to summon the player profile on supported platforms.

• Switching pirates within the pirate selection screen on the front end should no longer cause the lighting to flicker.

Visual and Audio

• Players using the ship’s wheel on a Brigantine will no longer have their game chat muffled when speaking.

• Multiple crews gathering to join the Legend of Glitterbeard will now find the visual effects light consistently with the music.

• Players using a disguise while wearing a Curse with visual effects will no longer find those effects give away their disguise by appearing briefly when other players approach.

• Players wearing a Stately Shirt should now find that all hairstyles appear correctly.

• Players with tattoos wearing a Stately Shirt should now find the tattoos appear correctly.

• Previewing a disguise within the Vanity Chest now correctly shows the pirate inside the disguise.

• The Dreamers’ Dust Costume has regained its visual effects.

• The Hidden in Plain Sight and Be Alluring to Get Ahead Trophies are now correctly sized and positioned when previewed in the shipwright’s shop or a player’s Trinket collection.

• Switching from crouching to standing while holding a fishing rod will no longer cause the rod to momentarily appear in the middle of the screen.

• The Baleful Bloom Costume now fits correctly on pirates of all body sizes.

• The belt of the Dark Adventurers Jacket no longer merges through the pirate when performing emotes.

• Players performing the Swashbuckling Story Emote should now correctly see the sword.

• Further improvements have been made to a range of existing hairstyles, ensuring they remain visible when wearing certain costumes.

• The Party Boat Jacket and Gloves now appear correctly on pirates of all body sizes.

• Players wearing Carla’s Costume should now find the medallion appears correctly on pirates of all body sizes.

• During the Ritual of the Flame sequence, the liquid in the chalice will now drain correctly.

• During the Ritual of the Flame sequence, glowing eyes will no longer be visible on the skeleton during the transition.

• The Pirate Lord now displays the correct visual effects when banging his staff during tutorial sequences.

• The lower jaw of the Obsidian Ashen Winds Skull now shows the correct material when being fired.

• Players using a disguise while wearing the Burning Eyepatch of the Ashen Dragon should no longer see visual effects floating above the disguise when moving.

• Glint effects on nearby treasure now appear consistently when moving in and out of range.

• After a Skeleton Fort Key is inserted into the Vault door, it will no longer appear to float in the air.

• Players wearing the Intrepid Explorer Jacket now appear correctly when performing a range of emotes.

• Crews equipping the Fog-Piercing Frog Lantern will now find the visual effects appear correctly after diving.

• Performing the Scrappy Weapon Pose or Menacing Weapon Pose Emote with a blowpipe should now trigger the correct emote.

• The flowers on Forest’s Blessing Costumes are no longer affected by nearby storms.

• The Ghost Ship’s Crest now appears correctly in the Ship Customisation Chest preview.

Environment

• All Skeleton Vaults have received a polish pass, ensuring their contents are completely hidden from the outside and the cracks in the flooring blend with the environment.

• Mercy’s End Fortress now has an Armoury for players to change their loadout.

• Players making their way onto a Skeleton Sloop will now find they can safely navigate the ship without hitting invisible surfaces.

• Walking into skeletons found deep within The Reaper’s Lair should no longer cause the player’s camera to stutter.

• When descending to the Shrine of Flooded Embrace, players should no longer find they can pass through certain doors before they are unlocked.

Text and Localisation

• After players dive to and complete a Raid Voyage for The Hunter’s Call, the Captain’s Logbook will now correctly record the arrival location instead of always displaying Discovery Ridge.

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

Download size:

Xbox Series X: 4.52 GB
Xbox Series S: 4.12 GB
Xbox One X: 4.52 GB
Xbox One: 4.12 GB
Microsoft Store: 4.3 GB
Steam: 2.9 GB
PlayStation®5: 1.6 GB

XBOX INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS CAN BE FOUND HERE.

PC INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS CAN BE FOUND HERE.

PS5® INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS CAN BE FOUND HERE.