Sea Of Thieves Adds First Limited-Time Adventure, Shrouded Islands

It's a big day for Rare's swashbuckling adventure game Sea of Thieves, which welcomes its first new Adventure expansion, "Shrouded Islands." The so-called Adventures are limited-time, story-focused events that are separate from the game's ongoing seasonal updates.

The first Adventure, Shrouded Islands, has players venturing into the "ethereal mist" to uncover secrets, take part in battles, and earn new rewards. A new Adventure will come to Sea of Thieves about once every month, and these will run for about two weeks. Shrouded Islands is available until March 3.

"As Shrouded Islands opens, a new threat encroaching upon Golden Sands Outpost, the sudden disappearance of Captain Flameheart from the skies and reported sightings of the mysterious Belle have caused a hubbub on the Sea of Thieves--with Larinna, leader of the Bilge Rats, keeping a watchful eye on these strange events," reads a line from its description. "Whenever you're looking to venture forth on an Adventure, Larinna should have a lead to help you get started and will even beckon you over if you approach the tavern."

The update that adds Shrouded Island is free and available to all Sea of Thieves players, whether they own the game outright or have it through Game Pass on console and PC. The patch notes and file sizes by platform can be seen below.

Years after launch, Sea of Thieves is still doing big numbers for Microsoft. By the company's latest count, it has 25 million players. Sea of Thieves is one of GameSpot's best Xbox One games of all time, and you can see the rest in our roundup of the Xbox One's 25 best games.

Sea Of Thieves Shrouded Island File Size

• Xbox Series X: 9.2 GB
• Xbox Series S: 6.36 GB
• Xbox One X: 9.2 GB
• Xbox One: 6.36 GB
• Microsoft Store: 8.95 GB
• Steam: 8.22 GB

Sea Of Thieves Shrouded Island Patch Notes

Gameplay Improvements

Improved Shanty Selection

• When equipping an instrument, holding the secondary interact button will now open the Shanty Radial directly, allowing players to easily switch between shanties.

Shop Filters

• New filters are now provided when browsing shop stock, allowing players to cycle through all items, owned items and unowned items for easier access.

Storm Effects

• When sailing the open sea in a storm, the strong current requires players to fight the wheel to maintain a course. However, when approaching an island or shipwreck, crews will now find that the current is less forceful and no longer causes the wheel to spin erratically.

Emote Radial Improvements

• Within a Vanity Chest, players now have access to 10 pages where emotes can be equipped.
• Bringing up the Emote Radial and cycling through the pages will also now only display pages which have emotes equipped.

Sunken Kingdom Treasury Balancing

• When raiding the vault of a Siren Treasury, crews will now find two gold piles with consistent gold rewards.

Outpost Cosmetics

Stygian Admiral Set

• The Outpost clothing shops now stock the Stygian Admiral clothing set, available to purchase for gold.

Accessibility

Ship’s Wheel Audio Support

• Players can now access additional audio support when using the ship’s wheel. Within the Game Audio Settings, use ‘Enable Additional Wheel Turning Sounds’ to play a distinctive sound every quarter-turn of the wheel. The volume of this effect can be tweaked by using the accompanying volume slider.

Fixed Issues

Gameplay

• While aiming down sights with a ranged weapon, being hit with a sword attack from another player or lightning attack from an Eel-ectric should no longer cancel the player’s aim.
• Resetting the input settings to default will now also reset the input for Swim Up.
• The Full Billow achievement can now be unlocked when completing the required criteria.
• Defeating skeletons or Phantoms while under the effects of a Cursed Cannonball will now progress the Master of Cursed Iron Commendation.
• Skeleton Ships and skeletons using island cannons should now fire at targets more consistently without long pauses between shots.
• When sitting in a Rowboat, interaction prompts for nearby seats and objects are no longer shown as they cannot be interacted with until the player stands.
• Mouse users on PC can now enable the ‘Recentre Mouse in Menus’ setting to ensure the mouse cursor returns to the centre of the screen when opening full-screen menus.

Pirate Emporium

• Performing the Stargazing Emote while wearing the Lodestar Costume now ensures the emote camera zooms into the correct location on the pirate.

Environment

• Players should no longer find areas within the Pirate Legend Hideout where they can trigger a safe teleport.

Visual and Audio

• An audible wood splintering sound can once again be heard when ships take damage from a range of external sources.
• Players should no longer encounter a multicoloured chequerboard effect on ship materials when loading into a session.
• Shooting while moving forwards, then sprinting and abruptly stopping, should no longer cause the weapon reload animation to skip.
• The Dark Adventurers Beard no longer clips into the player’s mouth when using a range of emotes.
• During an Ashen Lord encounter, when an Ashen Lord lunges at a player, they will now animate correctly during the leap.
• During an Ashen Lord encounter, the geysers resulting from a World’s End attack will now fade back into the sand.
• The visual effects when firing cannons are now triggered immediately, removing a perceived delay in launching cannonballs.
• Loading screens on PC will now display correctly sized images when using a 4K screen resolution.
• Capuchin and Barbary monkeys wearing the Cronch Outfits now fit correctly into cannon barrels when loaded.
• Players standing on the Sloop bed will no longer generate muffled sounds for others in proximity.
• Standing behind the Ferryman on the Ferry of the Damned should no longer cause their head to snap to the player.
• When wearing the Bell Brigade Gloves, the player’s hands should no longer clip into held items.
• ‘Dark Brethren’ – The water effects in the flume section now flow smoothly through the tunnel.
• When playing in windowed mode and resizing the screen during gameplay, using an Eye of Reach or spyglass zoom will no longer cause the screen to be off-centre.

Text and Localisation

• Steam players using Turkish language settings within Steam game properties will now find Sea of Thieves launches in Turkish.
• The Night-Time Spectacular achievement now correctly states the unlocking requirement of a display of five or more fireworks at night.

Accessibility

• When ‘Let Games Read to Me’ is enabled, the narration now clearly informs players when the game is loading.
• Enabling ‘Circular Navigation’ now allows players to equip emotes from Vanity Chests when using a controller.

Performance and Stability

• Enhanced reporting has been added, helping identify scenarios where server performance can result in a reduction in hit detection accuracy.
• After being disconnected during a failed server migration, players should now be able to rejoin their session when prompted and return to their ship.
• Players on PC are now able to set the resolution scaling below 75% and have that setting persist across sessions.
• Server migration success rate has been improved, reducing the frequency of experiencing Hazelnutbeard while migrating between servers.
• Server stability has been improved, reducing scenarios where crews are removed from a game session.

Known Issues

Incorrectly Positioned Levers, Pulleys and Traps

• When progressing through Tall Tales or Siren Shrines, players approaching mechanisms previously used by other players may initially perceive them in the incorrect location or position until they are used. For example, a moveable walkway controlled by a lever may be shown in an upright position despite actually being lowered, causing players to fall through unexpectedly.

Ranged and Melee Weapon Hit Detection

• In areas of intense action, players may find themselves firing shots or landing strikes that do not cause damage to their targets. While small improvements continue to be delivered during our regular updates, we are continuing to investigate and identify further improvements to the player combat experience.