The Sea of Thieves Anniversary update means you should set sail again

From fishing to harpooning, the rock-rolicking pirate simulator Sea of Thieves has seen another fun-packed update, and with it another reason to don an eyepatch and set sail again on the virtual high seas.

Well, I’ve made it. I have reached the much-revered status of Pirate Legend in Sea Of Thieves: a sign of my dogged dedication, ability to go without sleep and sheer will to grind away at cargo runs and ransacking skeleton forts.

If I’m honest, the much-anticipated moment of accolade was rather anticlimactic (most major gaming milestones are) but I now have access to Athena’s Hide-out, an impressive and exclusive cavern in the depths of every outpost — and its corresponding questlines.

All that will have to wait, however, because no sooner had I reached this landmark than the new Anniversary update dropped, marking one whole year since the official release of Sea Of Thieves.

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The harpoon gives players so many more options.

Anniversary is one of the biggest updates the game has ever seen, which includes fun new treasure-hunt style quest adventures set around mysterious pirate tales, clever clues, puzzles to solve and hidden islands that can’t be located on any map.

There are Skeleton Lord boss fights and a range of new features to change the way you tackle some of the sea’s terrifying beasties, such as the kraken and the megalodon.

Subtle changes to the shape and design of the ships along with the additions of stoves in the galley for cooking in previous updates had as all wondering what might be coming.

It turns out, among other things, it was a fishing mechanic.

This sounds odd, I know — in a game about piracy, adventure and epic ship battles at sea, why include something as banal as fishing? Well, it was one of the most requested features from the community, who have been begging for the ability to fish to their heart’s content since day one.

I’m not sure what it is about the act of casting a digital reel into the ocean and patiently waiting for a bite that is so appealing, but I expect it’s not too dissimilar to the charm of fishing in the real world.

In the midst of all the chaos and questing, it can be rather nice to just take a moment as the sun sets over the Caribbean Sea to simply sit in quiet reflection, waiting for the telltale tug of a catch.

Cooking is an update players had been calling for.

Practically, catching a fish and cooking it in the newly added stove below deck provides you with a food item that restores more health than the usual fruit offerings.

The most exciting change to the ship itself is undoubtedly the harpoon. This weapon (while having obvious benefits to encounters with giant sea creatures) is even more useful when used in PVP battles with other players.

Harpooning a passing ship means you can keep it in close range for cannon fire, locking it in place or reeling it in close. You can even harpoon individual players and yank them aboard your own ship (painful but hilarious).

There’s also a clever move you can pull off by harpooning a rock and slingshotting your ship around it for a nifty180-degree manoeuvre — impossible to pull off when relying solely on tacking with the wind, and extremely useful in a ship-on-ship hot pursuit.

Probably the biggest change to Sea Of Thieves, however, is the inclusion of the new Arena game mode.

While Player vs Player is freely open to anyone and makes up a significant part of the open world Sea Of Thieves experience, it is designed also to be a place where should you not want to directly pursue conflict with other players, you can just leisurely quest with friends and passively explore.

The Arena is a PVP-specific realm in which you can enter into combat with other battle-hungry pirates without having to sail the sea for ages in hopes that you might run into someone keen to get their canon on.

 

Fishing, along with the added stove on ships update, creates an easy way to boost health.

To coincide with this new mode is the addition of some new and creative ways to disable enemy ships while in combat.

Carefully aimed canon fire can achieve a number of helpful outcomes, such as dropping the anchor and damaging the capstan, collapsing the mast or destroying the wheel.

Damage to each of these structures will need to be repaired before function can be returned, which adds to the encounters’ manic nature.

Between the random harpooning, trying to repair our fallen mast and being unable to steer our ship with the wheel having been annihilated, I had an absolute ball in these new player skirmishes.

If I have one suggestion, it is that the ability to have console players matched with other console players — and the same for PC — would be very useful, as pistol-fire from a PC player is still far more accurate and deadly, and frustrating to go up against when playing on Xbox.

Other games have adopted this system and it makes the playing field (or ocean) more balanced and fair.

There are some Sea Of Thieves naysayers who say this content is too little too late — but I’ve enjoyed the journey from the start, and this drip-feed of content punctuated with less regular but much-appreciated larger updates has been an exciting way to experience a game as it evolves. Now, I’m off to hunt down the fabled “shores of gold”: a hidden island is rumoured to be located in the Ancient Isles and my lust for gold is never sated. Yarrr!