How to get gold fast in Sea of Thieves so you can build the boat of dreams

Not sure how to get gold quickly in Sea of Thieves? After all, a pirate with empty pockets is like a scarecrow without straw: utterly incomplete. If you're going to live life one wave at a time in Sea of Thieves, you'll need to know how to enrich yourself quickly. For that, use our guide on getting gold in Sea of Thieves in a hurry, and in no time you'll be sporting the rarest cosmetics and dancing the night away with your crew.

1. Order of Souls missions get you the most gold in the early stages

Although the Gold Hoarders quests might be the easiest to pull off when you’re still trying to work out where the sails are, you might want to head over to the Order of Souls questgivers instead. Their journeys work on a similar basis to the Gold Hoarders, but rather than going hunting for buried treasure, you’ll be asked to go to a certain island to take out an undead pirate captain who just happens to be a skeleton. Just look for a clutter of skeletons, and once you’ve picked them all off, their boss will appear. Kill it and then take its head back to any outpost’s Order of Souls tent to get your reward.

To begin with you’ll get a couple hundred gold coins per skull, while a Gold Hoarders’ chest will net you around 50-100 gold coins. When you’re starting out getting basically double the gold for doing a very similar quest will feel like winning the lottery, and get you steadily closer to obtaining all that nice new kit.

2. Merchant Alliance missions are also great for gold, but more complicated to pull off

If you get bored of killing the undead - although, why would you - you can dabble in some Merchant Alliance missions as they tend to be as lucrative as the Order of Souls deliveries. However, they’re a lot more complicated to pull off. Initially you’ll be tasked with delivering a couple of chickens, of varying colours, but to do this you need a chicken coop. The Merchant Alliance vendor will give you one per player, so if you’re trying to do this on your own, you’ll have to find the second coop yourself by scouting around the many, many islands of Sea of Thieves’ map. If you do manage to deliver a chicken, you’ll get a couple of hundred gold for your efforts. But it is a lot of effort.

3. Finding cursed skulls or expensive trinkets is ridiculously lucrative

Ooh what’s that over there? I see something shiny, glinting in the sand. For goodness sake, go and get it. Anything you find just lying about on a island, nab it and put it on your ship. For a cursed skull I got given a whopping 900 gold, and the same again for an ornate gold goblet I just found on a beach. They’re rare, but if you see anything glimmering on the lands during your treasure hunting, sell it as soon as you can and then just watch the gold roll in.

4. Watch out for cloud skulls, but you’ll need some friends

The very, very best way to earn yourself serious gold in Sea of Thieves is by accessing the Cursed Island treasure room hidden deep within the Skeleton Fort, which is marked on your map (when it appears) by a giant skull cloud. Heading over there, defeating the waves of skeletons that appear, and getting the Skeleton Key will allow you access to all the loot, but you’re going to need some help. The increasingly difficult waves of skeletons are an absolute pain in the bones to take out if you’ve got a small crew. You’ll need to team up with other pirate crews - I know, perish the thought of sharing loot - in order to take them all out. If you do though, you’ll have the best ship on the seas in no time.

5. The seas can be home to floating rewards

If another ship has been dragged into the depths, hopefully not by your crew you dirty scoundrels, you can occasionally find some of their treasures will come floating back up to the surface. As you sail the seas, watch out for floating barrels. Drop your anchor and then dive into to see what’s been left behind. Sometimes you might only get gunpowder and bananas, but who’s to look a gift(sea)horse in the mouth?