Sea of Thieves news and updates: what's new on the Sea of Thieves

[Update: Rare has outlined its plans for adding brand new content to Sea of Thieves as we roll towards May. Read on to our 'What's Coming' section to find out more.]

On March 20 2018, Rare's sandbox multiplayer pirate adventure Sea of Thieves was unleashed on the world. After a lot of hard work the developer now has, well, more hard work. Being an open-ended online service game, Sea of Thieves will be subject to plenty of updated and improvements throughout its lifetime.

To help you keep on top of what's new and what's coming up, we've put together this handy page which will be updated with all the latest announcements.

Don't forget to take a look at our full Sea of Thieves review as well as our guide to survival on the high seas.

What's new in Sea of Thieves?

Rare has released the latest patch (1.0.2) for Sea of Thieves and it's bringing a handful of changes to the game which will address some recent player gripes and clear up a few more of the launch issues that have been reported.

The patch notes state that ship respawn distance has now changed. This means that when your ship sinks, it'll respawn much further away from the ship that sank it - out of visible view to be more precise. This change is in response to some player feedback which said that respawning back in the midst of battle was resulting in players being repeatedly attacked with no chance of escape.

Another change is that you'll now have to drop any item you're holding before the mermaids will teleport you back to your ship. This is to solve a problem faced by many players who found they were losing treasure because they weren't aware they'd be forced to drop it when teleported. This is something we encountered ourselves, so this does put the point across far more clearly without having to directly say on screen that you'll lose treasure.

There are also the usual performance improvements and bug fixes as well as a few known issues. If you're one of the players that's unable to equip a second weapon, Rare suggests using this support article, and if you can't see your in-game DLC you should try this support article.

What's coming up in Sea of Thieves

Rare has detailed some of its new content plans in a recent blog post. Now, the new additions won't be immediate as the developer has said that its plans for the rest of April will be to address the top feedback points of its players.

However, as we go into the month of May, Rare says players can expect to see the beginnings of some new content being introduced.

The first content update ill be called The Hungering Deep and it will see the introduction of a brand new AI threat which, the post says, players will have to "work together to discover and defeat." Alongside this, there will be a new items, new mechanics and a few unique awards.

It's not entirely clear what the new AI threat will be but given players will need to discover it we're imagining another mythical monster similar to the Kraken. Perhaps something like the Aspidochelone, a giant creature which is often mistaken for an island? Or the devil whale hunted in Moby Dick?

May will also bring about a live events schedule which will introduce "fun new ways to play with weekly events and rewards."

May won't, of course, be the end of the updates and Rare gave a glimpse of what is planned for the summer months. One update called Foresaken Shores will introduce an entirely new though "perilous" area to the world with another new AI enemy. Cursed Sails is another update which will bring about a new AI threat (could we finally see The Flying Dutchman?) with a brand new ship type for players.

There's no sign of what this ship type could be but we wonder if it could be something capable of carrying more than four players (a Man o' War perhaps?) for crews that are of a mind to expand.

Though Rare hasn't revealed everything that will be added in its future updates, we do know that it's planning to introduce the game's cosmetic microtransactions at this time, which will include pets to purchase.

As far as long-term plans are concerned, Rare apparently intends to add new guilds for a wider-variety of missions at some point and also extend the end-game for those who eventually achieve Legendary Pirate status.

How can I play it?

Sea of Thieves is now available on PC and Xbox One. It's possible to purchase the game outright, but you can also pick up an Xbox Game Pass subscription where the entire game is included.

If you're not sure whether Sea of Thieves is for you, picking up a Game Pass trial for free and playing the game for a short time through it is a good way to find out.

The game is not a port for PC or Xbox, it works equally on both and supports cross-play. While the console version has locked frame rates of 30fps, the PC version's are unlocked. Mouse, keyboard and controllers are all supported across console and PC.