Sea of Thieves Round-Up: June 2021
Sam 'Foc'sle' Foxall (Copywriter)
Posted in: General Updates on 12 Jul 2021
We promised you a bustling summer for Sea of Thieves and in June, that’s what we delivered! New threats were unleashed onto the Sea of Thieves with the launch of Season Three, our shiny new Community Hub emerged – and oh yes, we released a little thing called Sea of Thieves: A Pirate’s Life which fulfilled the dream of bringing Captain Jack Sparrow and Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean universe to Sea of Thieves for the ultimate pirate crossover. Pretty busy, then. Time to turn back the clock and rattle through all the action in June!
Content Update
Before we all set off on our adventures to save the pirate’s way of life, we had to conclude our ocean-wide game of ‘Capture the Emissary Flag’ with the Reapers vs. the World Event. At the final ring of the ship’s bell, it was the Gold Hoarders who earned themselves the ignominious reputation of The Sea’s Most Picked-On Trading Company, so expect to have their hat winging its way to you in-game if you joined in the fun. We’re sure everyone will patch things up in the current Flags of Friendship Event, where co-operative pirates help to make the seas a safer place.
Of course, the big news in June was the release of Season Three and Sea of Thieves: A Pirate’s Life – a humongous content drop to rival 2019’s Anniversary Update, which sees the worlds of Sea of Thieves and Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean colliding in epic fashion. In line with such a momentous announcement we unleashed a veritable broadside of content, ranging from cinematic trailers to in-depth showcases and interviews – along with our usual new Season trailer and a heaping helping of Pirate Emporium cosmetics, which of course includes the togs of Captain Jack Sparrow and his crew – to detail everything you can sink your gold teeth into with this update.
For the rundown of everything we added in both Sea of Thieves Season Three and Sea of Thieves: A Pirate’s Life, set your sights on the frankly mammoth release notes for the in-depth breakdown. There’s a lot to cover, so settle in with your best grog.
News and Features
News, news, news! There was so much news in June, we could start up our own pirate newsagents. There were other stories this month besides the big one, like this: featuring over 38 tracks and with a 24-page storybook penned by Merrick himself, the Sea of Thieves vinyl soundtrack is now available for eager audiophiles to pre-order from iam8bit. The perfect accompaniment to nautical game nights or swanky soirees in the Captain’s quarters!
Sea of Thieves Prime Gaming drops continued through June and beyond, and as mentioned earlier we also launched our Community Hub, your one-stop shop for anything and everything to do with the wider Sea of Thieves community – whether you’re searching for fan-run resources, Community and Creator Spotlights like our recent chat with keen photographer and explosives expert MrFawlout, or info on how to join initiatives like the Insider Programme.
But enough preamble, let’s get down to this month’s main news story – Sea of Thieves: A Pirate’s Life. Following its grand reveal during the Xbox & Bethesda Games Showcase on June 13th, it was full steam ahead and all hands to the pump, if you don’t mind us mixing our metaphors. From interviews with various outlets on how we brought this dream collaboration to life to a dedicated Xbox Showcase event, we had wall-to-wall information to prepare you for your quest to save the Sea of Thieves alongside Captain Jack Sparrow. There was even a special message from our Creative Director Mike Chapman on launch day, welcoming everyone and outlining just how special this partnership has been for all of us at Rare.
Now, you didn’t think that in all this excitement we’d forget the incredibly important segue into…
Videos and Streams
Videos and streams! Our tankards runneth over with videos in June as we showed you the fruits of our piratical labour. Starting with that surprise Sea of Thieves: A Pirate’s Life Announcement Trailer, we gave you another action-packed look at the antics you’d be getting up to with a certain bird-monikered pirate in our Gameplay Trailer, followed by an in-depth tour of some of the new Tall Tales, insights from members of the development team and even some behind-the-scenes facts in our special Showcase.
We didn’t stop at just showing our excitement for this update, oh no. We scoured the Internet, found some of the best reactions to our big reveal and put them together to form one massive reaction video! Seeing the penny drop as people realise who’s locked up in that prison cell – priceless.
To mark the launch of a new Season, a trailer summing up all the major beats was inevitable – and in keeping with the celebratory Seasonal spirit, we also had a special set of charcoal-coloured Twitch Drops for people to get their hands on by watching any Sea of Thieves stream during the last few days of the month.
Social Channels
Naturally, the Sea of Thieves social channels were awash with all things Sea of Thieves: A Pirate’s Life and more throughout June. Like our steady drip-feed of dazzling concept art on Instagram for those keen to see how Season Three’s headline feature went from the initial artwork to what you can find in-game. Some prime wallpaper material in there folks, get digging!
Speaking of stunning scenes, after celebrating the removal of Twitter’s vertical cropping with a #SoTShot focus on elongated images, we dedicated the latest contest to showing what it means to live the pirate’s life – whether that’s plumbing the depths for treasure, pulling off a daring raid with a Gunpowder Barrel or simply enjoying the sun rise while fishing for Splashtails.
Our other usual hashtags got in on all the excitement too: #SundayVibes had us watching the moon wheel overhead at Castaway Isle, waiting for a storm to pass at Old Salts Atoll, listening to the (quite unnerving) sounds of the deep in the Sunken Kingdom and finishing our tour among the wrecks at Sailor’s Grave. We didn’t forget about you lorekeepers either, as #TriviaTuesday covered such topics as the missing Silver Blade, the duties of the Ferryman, the Ashen Lord Red Ruth and the subjects of the Sirens’ worship.
We also kept up our regularly scheduled programming of hijinks and hilarity, sharing tips for new pirates and favourite Titles, celebrating the humble harpoon, giving Phil Spencer screenshot advice, calling on people to join in a familiar shanty and asking how many times you’ve ended up in the brig. You can be honest, we won’t tell anyone. A rather soggy rune page also floated up from the depths – we’re amazed it survived the trip without getting too smudged.
The ship’s cat may be out of the bag, but the fun doesn’t stop here – we’ve got summer and the rest of Season Three ahead! To get the latest info piping hot off the presses, be sure to follow all our Sea of Thieves social channels: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitch, TikTok and the official Forums and Discord server. We blew our budget on the skywriter, so we’ll be distributing July’s round-up via a town crier reading a ludicrously long parchment in the village square.
