50 Fun Facts About Sea of Thieves

Which golden fruit, valued at £20,000 apiece, did Microsoft offer winners of The Quest, its Sea of Thieves riddle hunt?

Golden bananas, four in all, were the prizes in The Quest, an alternate reality game of riddles that Microsoft ran around the 2018 launch. In the game itself the fruit is a pirate's everyday snack for restoring health.

Which monster of Norwegian sailors' lore can rise beneath a Sea of Thieves ship and turn the water inky black?

Kraken tentacles, up to eight at a time, wrap the hull, slap the deck and suck pirates into their mouths. The beast only strikes in open water, and it slows its target to a crawl.

Which ghost ship carries dead Sea of Thieves pirates until a door opens and lets them return to their crew?

Ferry of the Damned is sailed by the mysterious Ferryman, and the wait aboard depends on the size of a pirate's crew. Pirates then reappear on their own ship with full health and ammunition.

Which film pirate do players rescue and recruit in A Pirate's Life, the 2021 Disney story campaign for Sea of Thieves?

Jack Sparrow arrives aboard the Black Pearl, only for sirens to attack and capture his crew. The free campaign runs to five story chapters and spent about two years in development.

Which 1985 film about friends hunting pirate treasure did a Sea of Thieves designer liken the game to?

The Goonies was the parallel drawn by designer Mike Chapman, who saw the same bond between friends on a treasure hunt they would always remember. The Pirates of the Caribbean films shaped the look and tone too.

Which British studio, famous for GoldenEye 007 and Donkey Kong Country, created the pirate adventure Sea of Thieves?

Rare put almost all of its 200 staff on the game and dropped its famous secrecy to do it. More than 30,000 fans joined a programme that let them test early builds and talk to the team.

What shape is the huge grey cloud that marks an active fortress raid in Sea of Thieves?

A skull in the sky tells crews across the server that skeletons have stashed stronghold treasure in the fortress vault. The cloud is visible from far away, which draws rival crews to the same raid.

Which sea creature surfaces beside a stranded Sea of Thieves pirate, ready to carry them back to their ship?

A mermaid appears when a pirate strays far from their ship or the ship sinks, waving a staff that sends up a pillar of green smoke. Taking the lift means leaving behind whatever the pirate was holding.

Which drink fills every Sea of Thieves pirate's tankard and leaves them staggering after a few too many?

Grog blurs a pirate's vision, sets them swaying and, after enough tankards, brings on vomiting. A drunk crewmate struggles to handle the wheel, the cannons and even a rowboat.

What can a Sea of Thieves pirate do to stop a captured snake from hissing and spitting venom?

Play music near a snake and it sways along, charmed, and will not attack. Left uncharmed, a basketed snake can still spray its carrier and even kill other animals stored nearby.

The pale Shrouded Ghost is the most elusive variety of which prehistoric giant that stalks ships in Sea of Thieves?

Megalodon sharks come in several varieties, and the pearl-grey Shrouded Ghost turns up far less often than the rest. A hunt begins when a tense theme strikes up and a fin rises behind the ship.

Which LucasArts adventure series starring Guybrush Threepwood received a three-part Sea of Thieves crossover in 2023?

Monkey Island follows the hapless Guybrush as he tries to become a notorious pirate and foil the undead LeChuck. The free expansion was the second time the game borrowed a famous pirate world, after Disney's.

Which captain of the Flying Dutchman is the main villain of the Sea of Thieves story campaign A Pirate's Life?

Davy Jones arrives from the Pirates of the Caribbean films, in a campaign that also borrows from the Disney theme park ride. Sailors were blaming him for drownings long before cinema: his name was in print by 1726.

Which natural hazard threatens every crew that lands in the Devil's Roar region of Sea of Thieves?

Volcanoes there can erupt at any time, hurling burning rock and boiling the sea around an island. The risk pays: treasure found in the region is worth well above its ordinary price.

Which Sea of Thieves trading company, run by seers in purple tents, sends crews to hunt down skeleton captains?

Order of Souls mystics have learned to draw memories out of the remains of dead captains, so they pay for every bounty a crew brings back. Their quests name the island where each captain's crew will rise.

What is the only kind of reward that gold and reputation can unlock for a Sea of Thieves pirate?

Cosmetic items are all a veteran has to show for hundreds of hours, because every sword and hull performs the same. The designers wanted newcomers and old hands to be able to sail together.

Which nimble vessel, the smallest in Sea of Thieves, is built for a crew of just one or two pirates?

Sloop crews give up cannons and toughness for agility, so a skilled pair can outmanoeuvre the bigger vessels that outgun them. It was also designed to shrug off ramming better than its rivals.

What can a Sea of Thieves crew do to a disruptive crewmate by majority vote?

A vote to lock them in the brig is the game's answer to troublemakers: the cell sits on the lowest deck and the sentence lasts at least ten minutes. Prisoners can still play shanties behind bars.

Which title does a Sea of Thieves player earn by reaching rank 50 with three of the trading companies?

Pirate Legend status opens a secret hideout, the Tavern of Legends, and a special trading company that deals only with holders of the title.

What are the story-driven Sea of Thieves quests called, first added in the 2019 Anniversary update?

Tall Tales gave the game its first structured stories, a year after it launched with no narrative at all. The designers had feared a scripted plot would stop players making their own adventures.

The first Sea of Thieves prototype was built in Unity, but which rival toolkit powers the finished game?

Unreal Engine 4 marked a break with tradition, because the studio had always built its games on technology of its own. The Unity prototype took five months and persuaded Microsoft to approve the project.

Which 2002 Nintendo adventure inspired the Sea of Thieves team's sense of travel, exploration and discovery?

The Wind Waker, a Zelda game, sends Link across the Great Sea in a talking sailboat with a pirate captain for an ally. Joe Neate, one of the Sea of Thieves leads, named it when describing the feeling his team was chasing.

Which rival console received Sea of Thieves in April 2024, six years after the game launched on Xbox and PC?

PlayStation 5 owners made it the platform's most downloaded game in North America the following month. It was the first title its studio had ever released on a Sony console.

Which Microsoft subscription service offered Sea of Thieves to members on the very day it launched?

Xbox Game Pass accounted for half of early sales, and the studio said it reached a three-month sales target in a single day. More than a million pirates set sail within two days.

Which competitive Sea of Thieves mode, added in the Anniversary update, closed in 2022 after too few pirates played?

Arena pitted up to six crews against each other in a race to gather silver on small maps. Most players preferred the cooperative adventure, so the studio stopped updating the mode and then shut it.

Which Sea of Thieves mode, added in December 2023, lets crews sail with no threat from rival players?

Safer Seas answered a complaint as old as the game: reviewers in 2018 had lamented that fighting other players could never be switched off.

Which Sea of Thieves currency, bought with real money, pays for pets and emotes in the Pirate Emporium?

Ancient Coins arrived with the Pirate Emporium in the 2019 update Smuggler's Fortune. They can also be won in play, from a blue and gold skeleton that digs itself out of the ground with a clatter.

Which trophies, taken from rival ships, do the Reaper's Bones of Sea of Thieves reward pirates for handing in?

Emissary flags mark a ship as sailing for one of the trading companies, which makes it prey for crews loyal to the Reaper's Bones. The same company buys any kind of treasure, stolen or found.

Which animals, delivered for the Merchant Alliance in Sea of Thieves, will starve unless they are fed fruit on the way?

Pigs cry loudly and slump in their crates when hungry, and die if ignored for long. One sold on a Merchant Alliance contract fetches about ten times its usual price.

Who voiced the shopkeepers and tavern keepers of Sea of Thieves when the game launched in 2018?

Its own developers voiced the launch cast, a homespun touch for a game their studio head called the most ambitious project the company had attempted.

Sea of Thieves pirates can play shanties on a concertina, a drum, a banjo and which fourth instrument?

Hurdy-gurdy players turn a crank to sound the strings, and every pirate is handed one at the very start of the game. When a crew plays together, the first to start leads and the rest fall in as backing.

Which German composer's Ride of the Valkyries can Sea of Thieves pirates strike up as a shanty?

Richard Wagner wrote the piece for his opera Die Walküre. In the game it sits beside Offenbach's can-can among the classical tunes a crew can play together.

Which skeleton lord, glimpsed in a 2016 trailer, is the main antagonist of the Sea of Thieves story?

Flameheart was famous among fans long before he appeared: his statue toured conventions, yet he was only spoken of in the game until a story update in late 2019.

Which horizontally mounted wheel do Sea of Thieves crews turn to raise their ship's anchor?

Capstan crews need time and effort to haul the anchor up, though it drops in an instant. A special cannonball, the Anchorball, can flip its state from afar.

Which everyday item must Sea of Thieves pirates raise to make ghostly shadow skeletons solid enough to hit?

A lantern's light turns shadow skeletons solid for a short while; in the dark, attacks go straight through them. Daylight has the same effect, and it lasts.

Why is the Chest of Sorrow risky cargo for a Sea of Thieves crew?

Its tears flood the ship during loud bouts of sobbing, and enough of them will sink it. Crews bail as they go, or have someone hold the chest while clinging to the ship's ladder.

Before settling on pirates, the makers of Sea of Thieves explored vampires and which other theme for the game?

Dinosaurs lost out because pirates suited a game about crews cooperating, and because few competing games had claimed the theme.

Which early Sea of Thieves expansion added computer-controlled skeleton ships, a feature the team had once ruled out?

Cursed Sails reversed a firm stance: before launch the team had been adamant it would never add such ships, then gave in to one of the biggest fan requests.

Which single-player tutorial, added to Sea of Thieves in 2019, has the Pirate Lord teach newcomers the ropes?

Maiden Voyage takes place on Old Sailor Isle, a training island outside the main map. It filled a deliberate gap: the game launched with no tutorial so that players would work things out for themselves.

What colour does the world turn when a Sea of Thieves ship strays into the Devil's Shroud at the map's edge?

Red light and black cloud close in as the hull starts to split, which is why players call the boundary the Red Sea. A ship that presses on is soon scuttled, and its crew wake aboard a fresh one.

Which shooter kept Sea of Thieves off the top of the US sales chart in March 2018, its launch month?

Far Cry 5 took first place in the US that month with the pirate game second. In the UK, Sea of Thieves was the best-selling boxed game of its launch week.

Which veteran composer of Killer Instinct and Conker's Bad Fur Day is credited with the Sea of Thieves score?

Robin Beanland scored television and films before joining the studio, where he also co-wrote the script of Conker's Bad Fur Day.

Which creator of Banjo-Kazooie directed Sea of Thieves, his final finished game before leaving the studio in 2025?

Gregg Mayles spent more than three decades at the studio, starting on Battletoads and designing Donkey Kong Country long before he turned to pirates.

Which codename, later echoed in the name of an endgame trading company, did the first Sea of Thieves prototype carry?

Athena took five months to build and was shown to Microsoft bosses including Phil Spencer, who approved the full game after playing it.

Which ship, captained by the future Pirate Lord, was the first vessel ever to enter the Sea of Thieves?

Magpie's Wing now lies wrecked on a reef, broken into several pieces, where pirates can still visit what is left of it.

Which upcoming game from the Sea of Thieves studio was cancelled amid Microsoft layoffs in July 2025?

Everwild had been announced back in 2019 for Windows and Xbox consoles but never reached players. After the cuts, the studio reaffirmed its commitment to its pirate game.

Which Sea of Thieves shopkeeper records great deeds and turns them into the tattoos she sells?

Umbra belongs to the Scribes, a band of map-makers who know every hidden corner of the world. That knowledge once got her taken captive by a pirate who wanted riddles decoded.

Which space game, whose players write their own dramas, was cited as an inspiration for Sea of Thieves?

Eve Online showed how players spin stories from the tools a game hands them, but the team found such games punishing and set out to make a lighter, friendlier version of that freedom.

What is the first name of the Pirate Lord, the ghostly Sea of Thieves captain who first crossed the Devil's Shroud?

Ramsey Singh earned the title by leading the first crew to discover the hidden sea. A shipmate on that journey, Rathbone, went on to found the Gold Hoarders.

Which way of playing was added to Sea of Thieves because testers in the Insider Programme asked for it?

Solo play was never the plan for a game built around crews, but the studio let early testers shape its decisions and many of them requested it.