11 months ago - /u/ - Direct link
A lil somethin somethin: You can find the details for this event on the announcement page here.
11 months ago - a-faddison - Direct link
Oh yes, that’s right, we’re not quite ready to be finished with 2023 just yet. Still one last round-up to squeeze in! Now, we might have been winding down for the end of the year in December, but that didn’t stop us from delivering a Community Weekend, two in-game Events and a monthly content update, did it? Of course not. So let’s take a look at everything you might have missed…

Content Update We wasted no time in kicking off the December excitements by hosting {LINK REMOVED}Season Ten Community Weekend right at the beginning of the month. With some distinctly fishy Pop-Up Plunder maps pointing players in the direction of highly desirable loot, a reward multiplier growing in line with Twitch viewership and an exclusive Title on offer for Skull of Siren Song victors, {LINK REMOVED}the Weekend was absolutely packed with adventures to get involved in.

From there, our third instalment of Season Ten was ready to go and so we opened the way to the long-awaited {LINK REMOVED}Safer Seas! Letting players explore the world of Sea of Thieves alone or with just their own crew of friends for the first time, this new mode offers a liberating alternative approach to the pirate life. Need more info on how it works, along with December’s other additions and fixes? The {LINK REMOVED}release notes await.

And of course, we couldn’t make it through the festive season without throwing in a couple of end-of-year Events. First up was a {LINK REMOVED}Gifts & Glory Event where players could pick up a festive flag and double rewards from all their expeditions, followed by the traditional Grogmanay celebration offering a new notch for your Annual Tankard as we toasted the new year together.


News and Features While everyone was preparing to boost their bonuses and smash some grog, we were able to put the finishing touches on our big December release, and thus we finally arrived at Safer Seas! There were a fair few changes packaged in with this new game mode, so we helped out by posting a {LINK REMOVED}handy launch article to go with it.

December is also the month in which we traditionally invite you to check out some of your personal sea-soaked stats in {LINK REMOVED}Your Story So Far – still available to view until January 15th! And further contributing to ending the year with a bang was a fresh round of the ever-popular Style of Thieves competition. Before we could get there though, {LINK REMOVED}announcing the themes was essential so that pirates could spend the month preparing their perfect outfit.

With all that happening and Community Weekend too, there was only time for one Creator Spotlight in December, so we made sure it was a goodie: meme queen and pirate menace {LINK REMOVED}Toxie Sinclaire filled us in on her journey to becoming a Sea of Thieves content creator and highlights of her career. Just don’t ask us what’s going on in some of those Spotlight screenshots. We don’t know and at this point we’re scared to ask.


Videos and Streams In the run-up to the release of Safer Seas, we wanted to answer as many of your questions ahead of time as we could, culminating in our official Safer Seas Explained video! Once that had time to do the rounds, it was on to release day with a launch trailer and a look at all the new styles coming to the Pirate Emporium and Outpost shops. And surrounding this, in keeping with the spirit of the Festival of Giving, were no less than three sets of Twitch Drops to snag throughout the month.

With the end of 2023 in our spyglasses, we found ourselves reflecting on Sea of Thieves’ progress throughout the year and what everyone in the community can expect from the next one. With that in mind, some familiar team faces stopped by the Tavern one last time before the holidays to record 2023’s final podcast. Give it a watch or a listen to reminisce over highlights, consider lessons learned and admire how quickly John’s festive quiz gets derailed by seemingly innocuous buzzer sounds.


Social Channels Adding to Twitch Drops, Emporium items and Event rewards in December was a separate bundle of cosmetics available to players with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, who had (and still have) a chance to pick up the Nightshine Parrot Bundle via XGPU Perks. Meanwhile, a select few joined the Hat of Unfeasibly Glorious Fame crew when their creations were featured in {LINK REMOVED}the Community Hub, and in case that still didn’t prove enough to satisfy the demanding Festival of Giving spirits, Golden Hour Sails were awarded to our favourite #SoTShot entries on the theme of {LINK REMOVED}Festive Fun.

We didn’t want to leave everyone hanging for too long after teasing the latest Style of Thieves themes, so we shared the winners ahead of the holidays and rewarded them with the coveted Fashionista’s Finery Gloves. More presents! From there, everything got a bit nostalgic as we all looked back on the year together, inviting you to cast your mind back to when you were first setting out on the seas and what sort of personal legend you’ve built up since then.

By that point we really were coming up on the end of the year, so with a few extra well wishes and final bits of trivia we took our leave for a brief, hard-earned break. Of course, you’re never really far from the seas. Especially when John’s reminding you that you’ve got {LINK REMOVED}Tall Tales to complete.


And thus endeth the month, the year and our only-slightly-late December round-up! A lot happened in the past 12 months out on the seas, and we loved sharing every minute of it with you all. If you’re in the mood for more nostalgia, take a look back over the other 11 round-ups from 2023 and feel free to share your thoughts with us on all the usual channels: Twitter, {LINK REMOVED}Facebook, {LINK REMOVED}Instagram, {LINK REMOVED}TikTok, YouTube, {LINK REMOVED}Twitch the official {LINK REMOVED}Forums and {LINK REMOVED}Discord. Beyond that, a happy new year to all and we hope you look forward to the tempting troves of new features and exciting announcements coming in 2024!

Previously in 2023: Sea of Thieves Round-Up: November 2023
Sea of Thieves Round-Up: October 2023
Sea of Thieves Round-Up: September 2023
Sea of Thieves Round-Up: August 2023
Sea of Thieves Round-Up: July 2023
Sea of Thieves Round-Up: June 2023
Sea of Thieves Round-Up: May 2023
Sea of Thieves Round-Up: April 2023
Sea of Thieves Round-Up: March 2023
Sea of Thieves Round-Up: February 2023
Sea of Thieves Round-Up: January 2023