Rare"s pirate adventure title Sea of Thieves today received the final monthly update of the year that brings in some holiday cheer to the seas. Update 2.0.10 carries a brand new type of voyage that has players seeking gifts, a new island dedicated to onboarding new players, and much more.
The new voyages will have players bringing back stolen gifts from guarded forts, with a Pirate Legend variant also available for tackling aimed at higher level players. More Ashen Tomes have arrived as well, with Ashen Skeleton Forts now appearing for an added challenge.
Meanwhile, the new player experience has been expanded heavily, with an entirely new island dedicated to teaching players being implemented. Accessible from the main menu, it teaches players about the controls, sailing ships, fighting, eating, and the voyaging process.
The sword has gotten a balance update also. The miss cooldown on the cutlass is now lower while the stunlock has been removed if an enemy pirate sword strike was successfully blocked. Moreover, there"s now directional damage indicators and a sword trail visual effect, plus swords now have a small delay after equipping before being able to swing, matching the delay on guns.
In addition to a bunch of festive new cosmetic items, the Black Market Archive shop has arrived. This is where players can purchase previously time-limited Black Market items they may have missed. The prices will be higher than the originals, however. As for the Pirate Emporium that deals with real money, Rare has put older items on discount while a variety of new cosmetic items, pet costumes emotes, and even some Charity Sails that give its proceeds to SpecialEffect have arrived as well.
Smaller changes and features included in the update have the portable ammo crates finally being added after last month"s inclusion didn"t go so well, improved fire visual effects, and possibly arriving as the most important change, vomiting into fires will now put the flames out.
The Sea of Thieves Festival of Giving update weighs in at 5.54GB on Xbox One, while Xbox One X and Windows 10 players will have an 8.59GB sized download waiting for them. The servers are now back up and running after the maintenance, inviting everyone to join in on the festivities.