Release Notes

It’s time for another Sea of Thieves monthly content update, and June’s release plays host to something as haunting as it is hostile. Ghost Ships join Sea of Thieves’ colourful cast of emergent threats this month and they’ve got a bone to pick with, well… just about everyone.

While pirates are out fighting or fleeing from this new spectral terror, they can also enjoy big improvements to the shanty system, new quality of life updates (some of which we’ve covered in detail in a developer post from Lead Designer Shelley) and new items in both the Pirate Emporium and Black Market. Read on to find out what’s in store!

• Choosing a Shanty – When equipping an instrument, the Item Radial now expands to a new menu allowing players to select which shanty to play. Alongside the original selection of shanties, several new ones are now available including an exclusive shanty for Pirate Legends!

• Improved Non-Verbal Communication – The Non-Verbal Radial has been redesigned to provide a much wider range of phrases separated into categories. The top category still provides fast access to chat and alerts, while the second category is for strategy (more ways to communicate with/give directions to others) and the third offers contextual phrases specific to an item or ship interaction. See this article for full details.

• Non-Verbal Radial Keybinds – The Non-Verbal Radial has now moved to RB (controller) and E (keyboard), ensuring players are free to move while communicating. The Quest Radial has been moved to a sub-menu inside the Equipment Radial, but a standalone Quest Radial is still available as a keybind option.

• Cannonball Radial – When using a cannon, the Cannonball Radial now uses a revised priority order for displaying cannonballs, Chainshot, firebombs, Blunderbombs and Cursed Cannonballs.

• Harpoon Retraction – The harpoon now retracts rapidly, allowing players to fire again and more easily hit moving targets.

• Barrel Inventory Mouse Navigation – When using keyboard and mouse, opening a barrel inventory will now reset the mouse cursor to the centre of the screen.

• Expanded Emissary Ledgers – The Ledgers for the Gold Hoarders, Order of Souls, Merchant Alliance, Athena’s Fortune and The Reaper’s Bones now have expanded views in the Reputation pages, with the Ledger overview now showing the required Emissary value to reach each tier and access the rewards.

• Ledger Tiers – When viewing an Emissary Ledger, players are now shown their standing in the current tier and the players around them.

• Ledger Views – Switching to ‘Friends’ view will now filter the Ledger to show your current standing amongst Friends, while switching to ‘Top’ view will show the top 10 Emissaries in the Ledger. The ‘Previous’ view shows your final position in the previous month’s Ledger (along with the ability to filter by ‘Friends’ and ‘Top’).

• Emissary Balancing – The Gold Hoarder’s Skull will no longer award The Reaper's Bones or Order of Souls reputation, or contribute toward those Companies’ respective Emissary Ledgers.

• ‘Let Games Read to Me’ Improvements – With ‘Let Games Read to Me’ enabled, extra narration instruction is now included when navigating menus and options, informing players which keys to press. In addition, tutorial prompts during the Maiden Voyage and onboarding experience are now fully narrated, and when activating voice chat a narrated alert informs players that the text chat box is active.

• Text Size Accessibility – Text sizes for all Crew Join and Leave toast notifications have been increased to improve accessibility.

• Interaction Audio – Opening a crate now makes a different sound to opening a barrel.

Performance and Stability

• To improve quality of service, Sea of Thieves servers have been activated in the regions of East and Southeast Asia and Japan.

• When attempting to log in to the game following an error, the response time has now been improved.

Gameplay

• Shooting any ship with a Chainshot will now inflict predictable damage holes on the outside of the ship.

• Trading Company onboarding will now start for new pirates without having to leave a session and start a new one.

• The Servant of the Flame at The Reaper’s Hideout will now allow players to interact with them and sell items when standing at any angle to them.

• Killing a player at the earliest point of vulnerability after revival and then reviving them again will no longer cause their camera to get stuck.

• During the Maiden Voyage, eating the banana before being prompted to no longer causes the Pirate Lord’s animation and dialogue to be cut short.

• In the Pirate Legend Hideout, swimming into the rudder at the back of the Athena’s Fortune tavern and getting stuck will now spawn you in the Pirate Legend Hideout.

• After an Arena contest, interacting with the ship’s wheel, cannons or ladders prior to migration will now correctly detach players, preventing them from becoming stuck.

• When receiving an invite notification through Steam, an alert sound can be heard in-game.

• The ‘View Gamercard’ option in Crew Management has now returned for Xbox and Microsoft Store platforms, but has been removed for Steam.

• When wielding and using a fishing rod, player animations are now improved.

• Players firing themselves out of the island cannons on Lost Gold Fort will no longer be teleported back to their ship.

Combat

• Improvements have been made to hit registration when shooting at players who are using static interaction points around the world, e.g. ladders and cannons on islands, docks and the Sea Dogs’ delivery ship in The Arena.

• When engaging in sword combat, attacking a player and landing the first hit will now prevent the rival player from retaliating, ensuring they are unable to attack through a three-hit combo. The rival player will still be able to block, so be prepared for counterattacks.

• Players are prevented from switching between throwables while throwing to bypass inventory limits.

Trading Companies

• Reaper’s Bones Emissaries handing in their own Flags no longer will no longer count towards stolen Flag Commendation progress.

• Umbra will no longer give out Order of Souls level 5 Emissary Quests.

• Emissary crews migrating to your server will no longer release duplicate Emissary Flags when sunk.

Tall Tales

• ‘The Shroudbreaker’ – Players will be awarded the appropriate Commendation when opening the Puzzle Vault even if this follows migration earlier in the session.

Visual and Audio

• Players using Nvidia RTX GPUs should no longer see gridlines in the sea in certain hardware and setting combinations.

• The ship’s compass should no longer appear stuck pointing towards north on certain hardware configurations.

• When starting an Athena’s Run Voyage, the appropriate audio now plays.

• The X Marks the Spot Eye of Reach now uses the correct model when wielded.

• The Cronch Eye of Reach now has the intended yellow lens.

• Players will now burp again after consuming several pieces of food in succession.

Steam Platform

• When playing on Steam and using the 'Fullscreen Video' setting, the mouse cursor is now constrained to the screen when the game takes focus.

• When playing on Steam, pressing Left-Alt and Space together are now correctly handled by the game.

• Improved Steam platform compatibility with a range of anti-virus products, removing the need to whitelist Sea of Thieves within your anti-virus product.

• Ranged and Melee Weapon Hit Detection – In areas of intense action, players may find themselves firing shots or landing strikes that do not cause damage to their targets. While improvements continue to be delivered during our content updates, this continues to be a key priority for the team.

• Stuck UI Menus – When interacting with a barrel and moving quickly through its inventory, players may find that the barrel’s state is not updated as items are removed. Players can also experience the Game Options becoming stuck on-screen when exiting a barrel in this state.

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 One: 5.88 GB
Xbox One X: 5.9 GB
Windows 10: 6.28 GB
Steam: 2.62 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