Sea of Thieves Round-Up: July 2021
Sam 'Foc'sle' Foxall (Copywriter)
Posted in: General Updates on 13 Aug 2021
After all the fun and excitement of June, July was a relatively sedate month for Sea of Thieves – except for all those new pirates still pouring in to try out Sea of Thieves: A Pirate’s Life following its launch at the start of Season Three, and some timely sporting challenges to try out too. We also had plenty of hijinks with everything from endearing donkeys to the perennially popular pineapple, so pull up a deckchair and relax as we look back on the month that was!
Content Update
Season Three rumbled on with players still exploring the five Tall Tales of Sea of Thieves: A Pirate’s Life, and we spent some time early in the month with the flyswatter out, issuing a couple more hotfixes to squash bugs and generally make the experience as seamless as possible. We’re actively listening to feedback so we can prioritise improvements, so keep sending your thoughts in via the usual channels as it does help us see which issues are the most prevalent. As a result, expect some delays to your requests for other things like owls and giant chickens, but we see those too (no, that’s not confirmation).
Meanwhile, keeping in the spirit of fun and co-operation following early July’s Flags of Friendship Event, Larinna and the Bilge Rats kicked off their own world-spanning sporting competition later in the month with The Plunder Games. During this Event, athletic pirates can compete over a series of suitably piratey sporting challenges with a definite Sea of Thieves twist, so get out those running shoes and go for glory! Not to flaunt our own sporting achievements, but someone on the development team was the Year 8 Egg & Spoon Race champion at school.
News and Features
The pirate news ticker earned a well-deserved rest in July, as we took stock after June’s absolute news onslaught. Of course, our Community Hub was regularly refreshed with new stories from around the Sea of Thieves, as players doing noteworthy things earned themselves Hats of Unfeasibly Glorious Fame for their efforts. Word on the wind is that some pirates find these hats rather hilarious – we didn’t know millinery could be so amusing. We also had two new stars treading the boards for July’s Community and Creator Spotlights, as we chatted to streamer and Shadow Stormfish devourer BriittyBear, along with pirate photographer and skilled solo Slooper Betta VP. And Twycross Zoo not far from Rare HQ got some fundraising support for its important conservation work too!
For those seeking fresh new fits, our DesignByHumans Fan Shop was updated with a new crop of fan-made designs featuring such subjects as Gunpowder Skellies, suspicious-looking barrels and everyone’s favourite screaming head in the sky, Captain Flameheart. Should you want to get your own Sea of Thieves design on a T-shirt, don’t forget to send it in for a chance to show up in the DBH store! If you’re more in the market for new tunes to punctuate your pirate adventures, we released our latest Sea of Thieves music track on all major music platforms – the haunting ‘Ballad of the Mer’. First transcribed in the Tales from the Sea of Thieves lore book, this poignant piece will add a touch of gravitas to your next Voyage.
One month on from the launch of Sea of Thieves: A Pirate’s Life, we also put together a handy FAQ to act as a one-stop shop if you have any burning questions regarding this frankly mammoth addition to the game. We included some questions we’ve seen pinging about on social media too, so if in doubt, check the FAQ. Speaking of frequently asked questions, you’re probably thinking to yourself: when is that super-smooth segue into talking about videos and streams coming along?
Videos and Streams
Turns out, it’s right now! As well as suitably stirring fanfares for Flags of Friendship and The Plunder Games, July saw us launch a brand new streaming series for pirates seeking more regular video content. Created in partnership with the Sea of Champions folks, Sea of Thieves Television will stream new weekly adventures on the Sea of Thieves Twitch channel – kicking off the fun with a series of Plunder Games-themed events. We’re also hosting three weeks of contests with the help of some of our Sea of Thieves Partners and Affiliate Alliance communities, so there’s no shortage of excitement to tune in to… when you’re not watching highlights from the weightlifting or sport climbing in some other global tournament.
In the land of Twitch Drops, we saw another cache of Gilded Phoenix cosmetics up for grabs early in July – with a swanky hurdy-gurdy and some ship parts available for avid stream watchers. Beware buccaneers touting tons of Gilded Phoenix gear, they’ll have seen every trick in the pirate book. Stay tuned to our channels for dates on the next batch of Drops!
Social Channels
As always, the Sea of Thieves social channels remained a bustling hub of memes, clips and other social media shenanigans throughout July. Following on from our #SoTShot contest dedicated to living the pirate life, we took a trip to the pictures with July’s theme, asking pirates to swap their spyglasses for movie cameras and recreate classic scenes from the silver screen. We had so many fantastic entries, we had to award a bumper crop of Golden Hour Sails – bonus points to any cinephile corsairs who can name every film depicted! August’s #SoTShot theme is naturally dedicated to all things competitive with The Plunder Games in full swing, so practise your slo-mo run and aim for a photo finish.
Our old stalwarts #TriviaTuesday and #SundayVibes ticked along nicely, providing some extra lore and stunning shots of the areas you’ll visit within Sea of Thieves: A Pirate’s Life. Our first stop on the #SundayVibes tour had us marvelling at a mound of pirate gold in Pirate’s Grotto, then we dived down to The Siren Citadel to see the Kraken, followed by a sail upriver to The Whispering Bayou before finishing our adventure at the stormy Coral Fortress – no massive Davy Jones cloud to be seen though. Looking for some fascinating facts for your next pirate pub quiz? #TriviaTuesday told us more about Captain Jack Sparrow’s magical compass, what was sinking those lost Merchant crews, memories of the Ferry of the Damned and how Sirens built the Sunken Kingdom.
Our other jolly social media japes showed no signs of stopping either: we got shown a lot of ships and heard guesses as to what player-dedicated shanties would be called, spied an appearance of the elusive Shrouded Ghost and of course, remembered the importance of family out on the seas. If we could name our own shanty, it’d probably be ‘Ballad of the Sozzled Scrivener’. We also went cruising past 400,000 followers on Twitter – we tried to have 400,000 sips of grog to celebrate but keeled over after our third.
We beat on, boats against the current as we forge ahead with Season Three and the dog days of summer. If you want to be the first over the line with all the important pirate gossip and scuttlebutt, get those Sea of Thieves social channels followed – that means Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitch, TikTok and the official Forums and Discord server. We’ll be going all Restoration for the next round-up and distributing it via pamphlets in your local coffee house, so make sure you pick one up when you’re next in with your fellow rakes and cads.
