Sea of Thieves journeyed into the world of battle passes and seasons in January, introducing a new progression system and a three-month cycle for major content updates. While Season One is active, Rare today delivered an update to the game that brings in several features requested by the community as well as a new event.
Today"s 2.0.22 update carries a brand new event to the game that is centered on the Hunter Call trading company. Kicking off on February 25, the Festival of Fishing will offer pirates new voyages every week that will test their fishing skills across various regions. The current week"s location will be broadcasted through the Mysterious Notes, and Larinna will supply the voyages.
Frostbite, Gold Hoarder, Order of Souls, and Merchant Alliance-themed fishing rods can be earned while the event is active by completing weekly Festival of Fishing challenges that are displayed on the Events Hub. These rods will be moved to the Outpost stores for purchase for anyone who misses out on the event.
As usual, quite a lot of new cosmetic items are now available across Outposts, the Pirate Legend Hideout, and in the premium Emporium. It is on the most latter store that players can find the latest charity item Sails of Hope, which is supporting the Great Ormond Street Hospital Children"s Charity this time. Microsoft is donating 100% of proceeds from its platforms and 80% of proceeds from Steam to this cause.
Moreover, the highly requested Steam friends support is now available for Sea of Thieves. This lets Steam owners of the game utilize the Steam friends list in addition to the Xbox friends list for easily inviting to and joining crews. Also included in this update are official Japanese localization, a new headphone-focused audio option for "a wider aural experience", mono audio support as an accessibility feature, alongside balance tweaks and bug fixes.
The Sea of Thieves 2.0.22 update is now live across Windows and Xbox platforms. The complete patch notes can be found here.
Meanwhile, the popularity of the live-service game doesn’t seem to be waning. Although the game is now almost three years old, Rare executive producer Joe Neate revealed in a recent video that January 2021 saw the most monthly active users Sea of Thieves has ever had, while the concurrent player number had seen the highest peak since the game"s launch. The current development team in charge of the game is the biggest it"s ever been according to Neate.
Sea of Thieves Season One is slated to last three months, which should mean Season Two will land in April. The pirate adventure game is available on Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, as well as Windows via the Microsoft Store and Steam. Xbox Game Pass subscriptions also provide access to the title.