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Through the rest of 2024, Sea of Thieves is making arguably the biggest changes to the base game since launching in 2018, including new weapons for the very first time in the game's six-year run.
Rare let loose a massive development update in the form of a 20-minute video previewing everything coming to Sea of Thieves in 2024, and quite frankly, there's an intimidating amount of new and massive additions. The content is broken up into Season 12, Season 13, and Season 14. Season 12 kicks off the gargantuan year of new content alongside the game's PS5 release on April 30.
The first major highlight are Season 12's new weapons: the Double Barrel Pistol, which can fire two individual shots back to back or be charged up for one powerful blast, and the throwing knives. Rare says the Double Barrel Pistol "sits between the pistol and the blunderbuss in terms of range and power," while the Throwing Knives can be hurled at enemies for "high damage." Just be careful with your aiming, as they can get lodged in the environment and used in an act of retaliation from your enemy.
OK, those additions alone are already literal game-changers and will dramatically impact the high seas meta, but Season 12 is also adding a new short-range, wide-spread cannonball called the Scattershot and a new throwable that spawns skellies on an enemy ship that are only friendly to the thrower.
Oh, and how could I forget about the new Wind Caller consumable. This is yet another traversal and practical game-changer taking the form of a conch that blows wind to make you sail faster than ever before. It can also be used to yeet your enemies off cliffs, power your rowboats, put out fires, and propel you through water when you're swimming. This. Changes. Everything.
Starting with Season 12, there will be ziplines installed across "a range of islands" including outposts and skeleton forts that'll allow for much quicker traversal when you're in a pinch. Alternatively, you'll also be able to walk a literal tightrope or glide along your harpoon's rope to reach destinations. And yes, you can carry gunpowder barrels with you, which means "destinations" translates directly to "enemy ships" in this case.
Further down the road, Season 13 will add what looks and sounds like the wildest, scariest world event in Sea of Thieves' long history. It's called the Burning Blade, and it brings back Captain Flameheart and his titular ship in its most terrifying incarnation. The massive warship comes packing 10 cannons and a front-facing fireball launcher - the first front-facing ship weapon in the game - and if you survive its fury, you can either sink it for presumably rare loot, or better yet, if you're a Flameheart supporter, commandeer it with a literal skeleton crew that can fire at enemies and repair your ship, kinda like Jack Sparrow's NPCs from the Pirates of the Caribbean update.
New World Event: The Burning BladeThis large warship, rocking 10 cannons and a front-facing fireball launcher, will be a new World Event that can either be sunk or commandeered by Flameheart-supporting player crews, letting them sail with a literal skeleton crew to cause chaos! pic.twitter.com/4w7K4XyCE4March 20, 2024
Season 13 will also add Skeleton Camps featuring ancient temples for pirates to explore, solve puzzles in, and of course, secure valuable loot. A neat little twist with these is that, if you're in control of the Burning Blade, you can go about collecting loot, including the new Orb of Secrets that increases the Burning Blade's Tribute, without interference from skellies on the island. In contrast, you'll need to be prepared for a "combat focused" situation if you dock on the island in a ship that isn't the Burning Blade.
Finally, Season 14 is Rare's attempt to cause utter chaos on the High Seas. "Season 14 is being designed with mischief at its heart," the studio says. This season will add "increased stealth capabilities and new ways to prank players," along with the grappling gun that you'll be able to use to grab loot from afar and board ships at very precise points.
2024 sounds like an absolutely wild year for Sea of Thieves, and Rare promises even more changes to be revealed in the future for "freshening up the sandbox." I'm all for limited-time events, but it's exactly this sort of reset, refresh, whatever you want to call it, that has the potential to breathe new life into the open world, keep players coming back for more, and attract new pirates too as we near the game's sixth birthday (blimey).
There's a reason Sea of Thieves is still one of the best Xbox Series X games you can play today.
