During today’s Inside Xbox stream, Microsoft and Rare went over details of the upcoming Sea of Thieves Anniversary Update. The update will be free for all Sea of Thieves players, and will include a new Trading Company centered around hunting and cooking, new story content, a competitive multiplayer component, and a series of brand-new improvements and changes. The update is set to launch April 30
The story campaign, Tall Tales – Shores of Gold, will be the first in a series of Tall Tales story campaigns, aimed at addressing the dearth of structured content the game launched with. Shores of Gold will follow existing characters and mythology, and forthcoming Tall Tales will supposedly follow suit. The competitive multiplayer mode, known as the Arena, is a ship-to-ship combat PVP zone that exists outside the normal game world and will “continue to grow in parallel to the Sea of Thieves adventure experience.”
The Hunter’s Call, the game’s newest Trading Company, is designed to reward players for fishing and hunting, even allowing players to cook meat and sell it for greater rewards. Much like the hunting mechanics in other games like Red Dead Redemption 2, rarer beasts will yield greater rewards, but they’ll also come with their own particular dangers. The relatively smaller, more detailed quality of life updates include more detailed pirate ship destruction that affects your ability to sail effectively, a harpoon gun players can use to steal treasure, and new enemies for players to fight on land.
Sea of Thieves, which launched in late March of last year, received a mixed critical reception, but Rare and Microsoft have been dedicated to updating the game for free in the hopes of creating a lasting platform, much in the same vein as similar redemption story No Man’s Sky, which itself is set to get a major update sometime this year.
