2.0.16

Release Notes from Rare Ltd.

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!

Haunted Shores
As Flameheart's power rises, so does his influence across the Sea of Thieves. The nefarious Captain has discovered a way to bridge the gap between the land of the living and the Sea of the Damned, summoning fleets of Ghost Ships to his service!


 * Battle the Burning Blade – Crews must sink the phantom fleets as they’re summoned through the rift between worlds before facing off against Flameheart’s flagship, the infamous Burning Blade.
 * Ghost Ships – While these phantom foes are fragile, any contact with them is dangerous and they attack with weaponry from beyond this world! Engage carefully to avoid their Phantom Cannonballs, the ghostly mines dropped in their wake and especially the Wraith Cannonballs that deal major damage and hit your ship like a shockwave.
 * Order of Souls Voyages – The Order of Souls now offer permanent new Voyages for pirates at Reputation Rank 25 and above wishing to seek out and sink Ghost Ships. For the duration of the Haunted Shores update, your old friend Duke will also offer any pirate an exclusive Mercenary Voyage to take on this ghastly new threat!
 * Supernatural Spoils – Along with their spectral skulls, Ghost Captain Ships will leave their ethereal armaments adrift in the water. Phantoms will circle any dropped rewards, so stay alert for the chance to collect a Cannonball Crate of the Damned stocked with Phantom and Wraith Cannonballs for your own use!
 * Haunted Shores Commendations – New Commendations have been added to the Order of Souls, charting players’ progress in vanquishing Ghost Ships. By progressing through these Commendations, players can earn the Ghost Captain Sails and the dreaded Burning Blade Sails.
 * Haunted Shores Achievements – New Xbox and Steam achievements can be unlocked by progressing through the new in-game Commendations. A total of 40 Gamerscore is available to earn from this update, and these achievements will remain in the game indefinitely:
 * Banisher of the Spectral Flame [10G]
 * Scourge of the Damned [30G]

Regular Events
If Daily Bounties and the Gold Rush multiplier aren't enough to fill your nautical calendar, head to the dedicated Events Hub for more information on the live events included in this update - including Ashen Expeditions and Shark Hunt!
 * Please note that the Fort Nights event has now been retired to the vault.

Pirate Emporium
As spectral ships swarm the seas, summoned forth by a terrible tyrant, why not pop into the Pirate Emporium and defend yourself against the fleet with... an angry shark dance?


 * Free Giveaway Emote – Players can find the new Shovel Skills emote available for free in the Pirate Emporium. Show us a trick!
 * Blighted Ship Collection – All the parts of the Blighted Ship Set, inspired by State of Decay, can now be picked up within the Blighted Ship Collection. A Blighted Ship Bundle is also on offer which includes all the regular ship cosmetics at a discount!
 * Gold Curse Collector’s Pets – These exquisite pets were transformed into living treasure by touching, pecking, or licking cursed gold!
 * Ghost Pet Outfits – After reaching Athena’s Fortune Rank 20, why not pick up something for your pet to celebrate the achievement? Ghost Outfits are now available for all pets and breeds!
 * Bilge Rat Cat Outfits – Is your feline-friend that bit more rough-and-ready, sort? Then pick them up a Bilge Rat Outfit to emphasise that scruffy, devil-may-care look.
 * Hide and Peek Bundle – Four new hiding emotes enable all kinds of sneaky shenanigans. There’s even an emote given away for free! When using these emotes, your gamertag and title will be hidden for as long as you stay silent. So keep quiet to stay hidden!
 * Animal Dance Bundle – Show off your animalistic moves by joining your cat or parrot in dance, wiggling your limbs like a squid or shaking that (imaginary) fin like a shark!
 * Solid Gold Bundle (Store Only) – Available only from the Xbox, Microsoft and Steam Stores. This bundle contains two premium Gold Curse Collector’s Pets touched by the same curse known to turn some pirates’ skin to gold, 1000 Ancient Coins and a free 25,000 Gold bonus for use in the Outpost shops! Head to the Microsoft Store or Steam Item Store to find out more!

Black Market
While Duke is fearful of the ghastly power flowing from the Sea of the Damned, he hasn’t forgotten to stock the Black Market with new items for your hard-earned Gold and Doubloons!


 * Wild Rose Clothing – This month, complete the look with the look with the Wild Rose Belt, Boots, Eyepatch, Gloves, Hook and Trousers, are purchasable with Doubloons.
 * Inky Kraken Equipment – Spend some gold to acquire the Bucket, Compass, Fishing Rod, Lantern, Pocket Watch, Shovel, Speaking Trumpet, Spyglass and Tankard.

Gameplay Improvements

 * 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 360 RB.png (Controller) / (Keyboard), ensuring players are free to move while communicating. The Quest Radial has been moved to a sub-menu inside the Equipment Radial Menu, 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.

Updates

 * 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 Order of Souls or The Reaper's Bones 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 East and Southeast Asia, Japan and South Africa regions.
 * 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 session and start a new one.
 * The Servant of the Flame at the The Reaper’s Hideout will now allow players to interact with them and sell items when standing at any angle.
 * Killing a player at the earliest point 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, the 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 that 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 prevented from switching between throwables while throwing to bypass inventory limits.

Trading Companies

 * Reaper’s Bones Emissaries handing in their own Flags no longer counts 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.

Known Issues

 * 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 and Installation
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.

Forum Discussion
You can discuss these release notes in the Forums here.

You can leave your feedback on the game in general here.