Sea of Thieves" first monthly update of 2020 is here, marking the end of the Festival of Giving event and kicking off the Legends of the Sea update. Among new adventures players can tackle, the update also brings in a cross-play preference option to Xbox One players in the Adventure mode.
Starting things off, Duke is back to deal out Gilded Voyages - one per pirate -, and although these quests give out robust rewards just as before, Rare has thrown in another twist. Instead of turning in the loot to an outpost, pirates can take them to the Masked Stranger at the Reaper"s Hideout island to double their gold rewards. Though this does increase the chance of meeting other pirates aiming to steal these valuables quite dramatically.
Meanwhile, Umbra has joined the game as a brand new NPC at the Lagoon of Whispers, dealing out tattoo rewards to players who manage to uncover locations where "historical events" have taken place. These are small and special stories that the developer has added to Sea of Thieves since its launch celebrating certain players and their impact on the game.
To have a look at all the new cosmetics that have entered the game, plus those tattoos mentioned above, head to the newly set up Legends of the Sea update"s landing page. There have also been some additions to the premium Pirate Emporium shop, including ship liveries, player and pet Lunar Festival cosmetics, emotes, and more, all celebrating the new year.
Going into the new cross-play preferences option, similar to other first-person titles that employ cross-play capabilities, Sea of Thieves players on Xbox One can now enable an "Xbox controller preference." Just like for Arena, this option is available on the settings menu before matchmaking for a game of Adventure. Enabling it will have the game try and put the player into a server with only other Xbox One players using controllers, blocking out PC players as well as keyboard and mouse users on console.
However, if the matchmaking service cannot find enough players in this preference, it will go back to searching for a mixed-platform game. Head over here to find the full patch notes for this content update, which weighs in at around 4.9GB for Xbox One, while Xbox One X and Windows 10 users will see a 7.8GB download.
The servers are now up and running, letting all the pirates on Xbox One and Windows 10, which recently crossed the 10 million mark, jump into the game and have a crack at all the new adventures.