Rare’s Sea of Thieves has finally received the new monthly update scheduled to arrive for free. Titled Haunted Shores, this update brings a new encounter named the same as the title. The update is currently available across all platforms and is ready to download.
Haunted Shores adds a couple of features that are seemingly very entertaining. Like, Battle of the Burning Blade, in which crews must devour the phantom fleets before they jump on the primary target.
Crews must sink the phantom fleets as they’re summoned through the rift between worlds before facing off against Flameheart’s flagship, the infamous Burning Blade.
Additionally to the new game mode in which players will fight off against the infamous Burning Blade, this update brings new Commendations. Progressing through them would grant players the notable Ghost Captain Sails and Burning Blade Sails.
There is a number of performance issues that have been addressed. We have posted them below. If you wish to read more about the Haunted Shores, make sure you jump to the official website.
Performance and Stability
- To improve quality of service, Sea of Thieves servers have been activated in the regions of East and Southeast Asia and Japan.
- When attempting to log in to the game following an error, the response time has now been improved.
Gameplay
- Shooting any ship with a Chainshot will now inflict predictable damage holes on the outside of the ship.
- Trading Company onboarding will now start for new pirates without having to leave a session and start a new one.
- The Servant of the Flame at The Reaper’s Hideout will now allow players to interact with them and sell items when standing at any angle to them.
- Killing a player at the earliest point of vulnerability after revival and then reviving them again will no longer cause their camera to get stuck.
- During the Maiden Voyage, eating the banana before being prompted to no longer causes the Pirate Lord’s animation and dialogue to be cut short.
- In the Pirate Legend Hideout, swimming into the rudder at the back of the Athena’s Fortune tavern and getting stuck will now spawn you in the Pirate Legend Hideout.
- After an Arena contest, interacting with the ship’s wheel, cannons or ladders prior to migration will now correctly detach players, preventing them from becoming stuck.
- When receiving an invite notification through Steam, an alert sound can be heard in-game.
- The ‘View Gamercard’ option in Crew Management has now returned for Xbox and Microsoft Store platforms, but has been removed for Steam.
- When wielding and using a fishing rod, player animations are now improved.
- Players firing themselves out of the island cannons on Lost Gold Fort will no longer be teleported back to their ship.
Combat
- Improvements have been made to hit registration when shooting at players who are using static interaction points around the world, e.g. ladders and cannons on islands, docks and the Sea Dogs’ delivery ship in The Arena.
- When engaging in sword combat, attacking a player and landing the first hit will now prevent the rival player from retaliating, ensuring they are unable to attack through a three-hit combo. The rival player will still be able to block, so be prepared for counterattacks.
- Players are prevented from switching between throwables while throwing to bypass inventory limits.
Trading Companies
- Reaper’s Bones Emissaries handing in their own Flags no longer will no longer count towards stolen Flag Commendation progress.
- Umbra will no longer give out Order of Souls level 5 Emissary Quests.
- Emissary crews migrating to your server will no longer release duplicate Emissary Flags when sunk.
Tall Tales
- ‘The Shroudbreaker’ – Players will be awarded the appropriate Commendation when opening the Puzzle Vault even if this follows migration earlier in the session.
Visual and Audio
- Players using Nvidia RTX GPUs should no longer see gridlines in the sea in certain hardware and setting combinations.
- The ship’s compass should no longer appear stuck pointing towards north on certain hardware configurations.
- When starting an Athena’s Run Voyage, the appropriate audio now plays.
- The X Marks the Spot Eye of Reach now uses the correct model when wielded.
- The Cronch Eye of Reach now has the intended yellow lens.
- Players will now burp again after consuming several pieces of food in succession.
Steam Platform
- When playing on Steam and using the ‘Fullscreen Video’ setting, the mouse cursor is now constrained to the screen when the game takes focus.
- When playing on Steam, pressing Left-Alt and Space together are now correctly handled by the game.
- Improved Steam platform compatibility with a range of anti-virus products, removing the need to whitelist Sea of Thieves within your anti-virus product.
