Sea of Thieves Round-Up: July 2022
Leigh 'Lucky Day' Loveday (Editorial Lead)
Posted in: General Updates on 09 Aug 2022
After all the excitement of June, from the final fight for Golden Sands to the first reveal of the Captaincy features you're currently enjoying, July was always destined for a slightly slower pace. Even more so when Season Seven hopped the fence into August. But that doesn't mean there was nothing going on: for a start, ghost boy Merrick's lethal assailant was at large and in need of unmasking...
Content Update
Yes, our fifth time-limited Adventure 'The Forsaken Hunter' ran through the first half of the month, putting major spoilers off-limits until the 14th. That said, our Who's Who section did quietly sprout a single new entry along the way, and a hotfix helped resolve a handful of impetuous issues while the Adventure was still in motion.
Alongside all this, the first Sea of Thieves Mystery continued down the path of community-driven progression: with the elusive 'T' of #WhoIsT infamy finally identified and persuaded to speak up, a Sea Dog Chest was unearthed, containing a cryptic note from a dead man. A week of further sleuthing brought us to the discovery of a letter grid as Burnt Fragments began washing up across the Sea of Thieves, bemusing pirates aplenty. Another puzzle to be decoded in the name of nailing DeMarco's killer...
As a new month loomed, July saw itself out with another very welcome Gold & Glory Weekend, helping to bridge the two-week gap left when Season Seven absconded into August. While this meant that searing your masterwork of nomenclature onto a Ship's Crest would have to wait, it did give those Prehistoric Plunderer cosmetics a little longer to embed themselves in Emporium history.
News and Features
Right in the middle of the month, hot on the heels of 'The Forsaken Hunter' drawing to a close, came EP Joe's announcement article on the Season Seven date change. Supporting articles consequently shimmied down the timeline, but our regular Spotlight features held steady: a Legend Spotlight on the perennially positive Anja and a Community Spotlight on Skulliah from Merfolk's Lullaby filled out July, along with the latest Spotlight Showcase on Steam, handily summarising these and all the other Spotlightees since May.
And here's another lullaby: 'Elegy of the Sea', July's eminently calming addition to Sea of Thieves' streamable soundtrack. Meanwhile on the online store, the arrival of the Adventure Collection let you quickly and easily inform people which of the first five Sea of Thieves Adventures was your favourite (or confuse them by choosing the Legend of the Veil Voyage), and over on the Community Hub we hand-picked two more batches of inspirational player creations deemed worthy of the one, the only, the Hat. The one that confers Unfeasibly Glorious Fame.
July also brought the announcement that in this brave new-old world of actual in-person events, some of the Sea of Thieves crew will be strutting down London's streets to attend a panel at EGX in September. See you there! It'll be fun! Not actually sure anyone's decided what we're going to talk about!
Videos and Streams
With big videos dropping on the last day of June ('The Forsaken Hunter' launch trailer) and the first day of August (Season Seven update trailer), poor old July got a bit short-changed on the YouTube front. Fortunately, a couple of our semi-regulars kept the Season Seven hype coming. Episode 8 of our podcast from the trusty tavern at Rare HQ surfaced early in the month, tackling topics including the 'Captains of Adventure' trailer that had just emerged at the time of recording. Then a few days shy of the end of July, Sea of Thieves News offered a first look at some of Season Seven's smaller features, like stools washed up on beaches – no, the kind you sit on – and the ability to go all Cap'n Deckard as you enhance maps and other held items.
Over in streaming world, meanwhile, July began with Season Six's last lot of Twitch Drops for tenacious Twilight Hunter collectors, while the highlight of Sea of Thieves TV's programming throughout the month was the grand finale of Last Ship Standing. Dig through the Twitch archive and you can catch up on ongoing shows like Creator Showcase and Gold Hunters too...
Social Channels
Speaking of actual in-person events, as we were before we started talking about something else, the community-run SoTFest finally came to fruition in July and lured fans from as far afield as North America and Australia to our humble British homeland. Plenty of Rare folks were there to snap some pictures for posterity, and a Roaming Meg even made its way back to Rare HQ in the aftermath.
Official channels saw a triple bill of #SoTShot contests spread themselves across the month, as the first day of July delivered the winners of the Shores of Plenty theme, the 22nd brought two more sets of winners on the subsequent Sneaky Scenes theme, and the 25th challenged players to picture themselves Going Underground. Give us your dankest pictures in the most traditional sense.
#SoTGear? Why yes, with a look at extravagant items from the Pirate Lord Hat to the Ancient Cutlass. #TriviaTuesday? Of course, ferreting around in the affairs of Sudds, Phantoms and the Dark Brethren, while giving Mystery investigators a little nudge towards a #WhoIsT suspect who'd avoided attracting much attention. Naturally there were plenty of #SundayVibes to go around too, from Outposts (New Golden Sands and Morrow's Peak) to Seaposts (Stephen's Spoils) and then a couple of spots with slightly less savoury names (Devil's Ridge and Mutineer Rock).
And in between all that, there was casual disrespect shown for Merrick's assailant, arbitrary decisions made based on your phone's battery life, some bawling into a box and even stranger things seen out there on the seas.
With Season Seven now unleashed and the next Adventure approaching fast, August is already feeling more stuffed than Donna Summer performing 'Hot Stuff' in a stuffy room after a heavy supper of stuffed peppers. So to avoid missing out on whatever's hacked from the packed round-up this time next month, you could always follow Sea of Thieves on one of these channels: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube or Twitch, maybe even delve into the Forums or Discord. For now, like last month, we're off to swelter in an unexpected British heatwave. Honestly, one is excusable but two's just rude.
