Sea of Thieves – Patch update 2.8.3 June 15, 2023

Table of Contents Table of Contents

Season Nine is in full swing and there is plenty of action to be had in the weeks ahead along with the coming new expansion of monkey island! The Captain’s Week Event is underway, which introduces the recently promised Captaincy changes. This is followed by the latest time-limited Adventure, which is a story-driven experience. June also features a variety of new items in the Pirate Emporium, as well as a number of bug fixes and balance changes.

Patch updates overview for Sea of Thieves

Without further ado, here is a breakdown of the new content in this month’s update:

• Captain’s Week Event: This event introduces the new Captaincy system, which allows players to customize their ships and crews.
• Adventure: This time-limited Adventure is a story-driven experience that takes players on a new journey.
• Pirate Emporium: This month’s Pirate Emporium features a variety of new items, including cosmetics, emotes, and ship parts.
• Bug Fixes and Balance Changes: This month’s update includes a number of bug fixes and balance changes.

Gameplay Improvements

Reduced Cannonball Knockback

• Players sailing a Galleon or Brigantine will find that the knockback from cannonball splash damage no longer propels them so far into the air, preventing them from being so easily sent overboard. However, they will still be knocked back and disorientated by the blast. This change makes the knockback experience consistent across all ship sizes.

Captains of Adventure Balancing

• A large number of Pirate and Ship Milestones have been rebalanced to make gaining Classes easier, and any progress already made will automatically be converted, potentially boosting players to higher Classes.
• The number of Classes required to buy the four tiers of Trinkets has been significantly reduced.
• The cost for saving cosmetics to a Captained ship has been removed, and this function is now free.
• The gold cost for purchasing ship decorations and Trinkets has been significantly reduced.
• Any Captain’s Beds that unlock through Milestones will now unlock at Class 2 instead of Class 5.

Patch Updates

Video Support

• Players logging in to Sea of Thieves will find that the front end menu now has the ability to display video content. This will serve the latest trailers and content directly in-game, and once watched or skipped will return to the beloved Map Table animation.
• Players will now also find video content within the What’s New section of the front end menu, which can be browsed and rewatched on demand.

Outpost Cosmetics

Aristocrat Hairstyles

• The urge to style yourself exquisitely needn’t stop when you reach the top of your head, as these additional hairstyles become available from Outpost shops.

Events

Captain’s Week (June 15th – June 22nd)

• To encourage pirates to test the waters of Captaincy and explore the permanent improvements introduced this month, the Captain’s Week Event comes with a whole package of perks!
• Enjoy heavy discounts on ship purchases, boosted rewards when sailing on a Captained ship, new weapons to earn by using the Sovereigns’ services and a Pirate Emporium sale full of bargains for keen Captains.

Twitch Drops

• Continue to unlock cosmetics throughout Season Nine with Twitch Drops! Stay tuned to Sea of Thieves social channels to find out when Twitch Drops will be active for Partnered streamers, allowing players to earn a selection of items from the Eastern Winds Sapphire set.

Fixed Issues

Gameplay

• Seagulls above barrels no longer prevent Megalodons from appearing across the seas, bringing the frequency of Megalodon encounters back to intended levels.
• Letters of Recommendation and Ritual Skull Voyages from Larinna have now been refreshed, and players can purchase twice the usual amount to cover those missed last month.

Battle for the Sea of Thieves

• The Hourglass is no longer interactable after a ship has been sunk, or scuttled by the crew.
• Crews losing a battle should now consistently be sent to the sinking wreck sequence and moved to a new location.

Captains of Adventure

• Rowboats that become damaged while docked to a ship will now visually show the damage prior to being undocked.
• The Pirate Milestone for Rowboats Docked will now increase when a Rowboat is docked to your ship by any player.

Pirate Emporium

• The icon for the Night Wulf Eye of Reach is now centered.
• The Crab Dab Emote and Monkey Dance Emote are no longer showing their sale prices.
• The Cutler Beckett Costume Set has now been updated to show the correct description of the item.

Visual and Audio patch updates

• When fishing, the names of fish that surface will now be shown consistently.
• The Flag of the Bristling Barnacle can now be equipped on a Brigantine.
• Pirates’ hands no longer intersect with the Order of Souls and Merchant Alliance Shovels.
• When approaching the location of an active Bounty Quest, the music will now consistently switch to the appropriate theme.

Text and Localisation

• The action of delivering, giving and selling items is now more clearly translated when playing in the Korean language.
• ‘The Legendary Storyteller’ – The Quest Book now correctly references Port Merrick.
• ‘Dark Brethren’ – A typo in the initial notification when starting the Tale from a checkpoint has been corrected.

Performance and Stability

• Improved server performance when large numbers of floating items are left at sea.
• Improved server stability to avoid instances of players being disconnected from their session.
• Steam players encountering a file corruption issue will now be shown an error message on launch rather than becoming stuck in a loop.

Known Issues

Reduced Server Performance

• Players may experience scenarios where they encounter ping spikes at random while playing, resulting in rubberbanding or client stutters. While improvements were most recently released in update 2.7.3, the team continue to work on further improvements for future updates.

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.

Download and Installation

Download size:

Xbox Series X: 6.24 GB
Xbox Series S: 3.88 GB
Xbox One X: 6.24 GB
Xbox One: 3.88 GB
Microsoft Store: 5.89 GB
Steam: 5.84 GB

If you need to catch up on recent content for Sea of Thieves, you can refer to last month’s release notes. Or, if you want to learn more about the features of Season Nine, you can check out the release notes in full. Are you ready for the Monkey Island expansion and the patch updates that brings?