Custom Seas
Build new game modes to challenge your friends, record unrivalled cinematics and experience the Sea of Thieves like never before! To learn more about this Season’s headline features, head over to our dedicated Season 20 page.
Legendary Location – Seas of Sailor’s Grave
Players in Custom Seas sessions can now choose the Seas of Sailor’s Grave as a new Legendary Location, allowing them to create and play within the Last Ship Standing battleground.
The Devil’s Shroud surrounds the map, keeping crews focused on the action. Due to the unique nature of the location, some World Events, creatures and island-specific features will be unavailable.
New Commands and Quick Commands
Hide Pirate (Quick Command) – This command hides the player’s pirate from others in the session. Using the command again reveals the pirate once more.
Invulnerability (Quick Command) – This command causes the player to become invulnerable to all damage.
Ship Invulnerability (Quick Command) – This command, when used during Quick Sail, prevents all damage to the ship, including holes, flooding, fire and damage to ship parts.
Repair Ship (Quick Command) – This command, when used during Quick Sail, fully repairs the ship.
Reset Supplies (Command) – This restores a ship’s barrels to their starting loadout.
Toggle Ship Invulnerability (Command) – This prevents all damage to the ship, including holes, flooding, fire and damage to ship parts.
Destroy Treasures (Command) – This removes all items either on the ground or in a pirate’s hands within a large area around the player, including treasure, food, fish, Storage Crates, ammo and Gold Pouches.
Command Improvements
Rowboats – When spawning a Rowboat, players can now select from additional Rowboat types including Cannon, Harpoon and Reaper’s Bones Rowboats, which will be docked to the ship on arrival.
Rowboat Limits – The server limit for Rowboats has been increased to allow 24 Rowboats to be active during a session.
Spawn Creatures – Within the Spawn Creatures menu, players can now summon Order of Bone and Blade Skeletons and their Captain variants. While Order of Bone and Blade Skeletons will initially appear hostile, after being downed and revived they will become allied to the crew.
Spawn Creatures – Players can now also summon The Mutinous Helmsman, The Two-Faced Scoundrel and The Duchess from the Skeleton Lord category.
Spawn Creatures – All creatures summoned from the Spawn Creatures menu will now appear with their nameplates.
Spawn Treasures – Players now have access to a Tall Tales category, providing a range of Quest Items and treasure found within the Shores of Gold and Ashen Age Tall Tale arcs. While a large number of items are included, items from Sea of Thieves: A Pirate’s Life and The Legend of Monkey Island Tales are not available.
Spawn Treasures – Lighthouse Logs and Smugglers’ Heist Paintings have now been added to the Miscellaneous and Paintings categories.
New Switches
Skip Ferry of the Damned – This switch controls whether players will be sent to the Ferry of the Damned or respawned directly after death.
Reviving – This switch controls whether crewmates are able to revive downed players.
Skip Downed State – This switch controls whether players must wait through the full downed state before respawning, or respawn immediately.
Weapon Damage – Players now have full control over the damage of player weapons within a custom session. Damage for each weapon’s attacks can now be individually increased or decreased from their default values. Weapon damage can also be set to negative values, allowing attacks to heal players or creatures. To heal crewmates, ‘Friendly Fire’ must also be enabled.
Switch Improvements
Custom Ship Supplies – Session Owners now have access to fully customisable ship supplies, providing fine-grained control over the resources that appear in ship barrels and how many of each item are available at the start of a session.
Unarmed Weapon Loadout – Players can now select ‘Unarmed’ as a weapon loadout override for primary or secondary weapon slots. This provides support for single-weapon or fully unarmed experiences.
Game Options Menu
Players opening the Game Options menu (Escape on PC, Options on controller) now have quick access to the Quick Command Menu, Session Overview, View Scoreboard and Free Camera, alongside the existing options.
User Interface Improvements
Free Camera settings are now saved between sessions, allowing players to retain their preferred configuration when closing and reopening the camera without needing to readjust the settings each time.
The Spawn Radial now allocates a slot to the most recently spawned item, allowing quick access to the last chosen treasure item or creature.
Within Spawn Treasure, various items have been rearranged across categories to aid ease of use.
Session Join Code Protection
When creating a Join Code for a custom session, Session Owners can now copy a code without revealing it to anyone potentially viewing their livestream.
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Outpost Cosmetics
New Outpost Stock!
The Outpost weaponsmiths now offer the Silver Coin weapons, with the Cutlass, Pistol, Blunderbuss, Eye of Reach, Double Barrel Pistol, Blowpipe, Grapple Gun and Throwing Knives all available for purchase with gold.
The shipwrights have also taken delivery of the Community Collaboration Hull, Sails and Flag, designed alongside the community during SoTFest 2026.
Pirate Emporium
Show off your personal style with purchases from the Pirate Emporium! Pick up exclusive cosmetics such as ship liveries, costumes, weapons, pets and emotes using your Ancient Coins, purchasable with real money. Head to the Pirate Emporium to browse and buy the latest additions!
New Items – Now in Stock!
Sunlit Sepulchre Ship Collection
Sunlit Sepulchre Weapon Bundle (Cutlass, Pistol, Blunderbuss, Eye of Reach, Double Barrel Pistol and Throwing Knives)
Sunlit Sepulchre Clothing (Hat, Jacket and Gloves)
Sunlit Sepulchre Lantern
Ghostly Curse Fox (Pirate Legends only)
Wing Flap Emote – now returning for free!
Gameplay Improvements
Faction Battle Repairs
Crews winning a Faction Battle will now find their ship is fully repaired as soon as the victor is declared, ensuring they can focus on collecting their rewards and moving on to the next battle.
Updates
PC Streaming Detection
PC players streaming live will now be shown a notification when returning to the game, providing direct access to Enable Streamer Mode and apply a suite of recommended settings.
The following software is currently detected: OBS, Streamlabs OBS, Meld, XSplit, TikTok LIVE Studio and vMix.
Pirate Emporium ‘Browse All’ Improvements
Images displayed in the Pirate Emporium’s ‘Browse All’ view are now cached, improving menu performance and reducing loading times when browsing large numbers of items.
Events
Big Ship, Little Ship (August 20th – August 24th)
To hear more about the introduction of this trial Event, check out the latest Sea of Thieves Developer Update video.
Crews setting sail on a solo or duo Sloop during this period will matchmake onto servers exclusively with other Sloops, while Brigantine and Galleon crews will find themselves arriving on servers together.
Season 20 Renown Rally (September 4th – September 7th)
Get a late boost to your Season Pass progress as we approach the end of Season 20! All Renown earnings will be doubled during this Event to help pirates reach this Season’s Star Prize.
Bilge Rats Weekender (September 11th – September 14th)
This Weekender tasks pirates with a single Challenge requiring direct participation with other crews, so be prepared to go and make some new friends!
Ashen Expeditions make a fiery return as part of this Weekender, with Ashen Message in a Bottle Voyages surfacing on islands within The Devil’s Roar in High Seas. Volcanic activity will fall quiet, Ashen loot can be sold for increased gold and reputation, and Event Goals offer opportunities to earn those sought-after Doubloons.
The Black Market will receive new stock during the Weekender for players with Doubloons to spend:
o Spider's Venom Jacket
o Shadow Tide Shirt
o Boots and Lower Mask of Boneward Blade
o Master of the High Seas Hook
o Bloodstone Dragon Belt
o Hungering One Hunter’s Dress
o Famous Pirate Headliner Hair
o Snapping Shark Emote
o Ghastly Graymarrow Beard (requires Pirate Legend status)
The Smugglers’ Market will also have new items in stock for Doubloons, the contents of which will remain hidden until Duke is discovered in his new location!
Fixed Issues
Gameplay
Further improvements have been made to the retrieval of purchased supplies from the Merchant Alliance and Hunter’s Call, ensuring crews cannot receive duplicate items.
Players redeeming multiple purchased Merchant supplies should no longer find themselves becoming stuck when repeatedly interacting with the vendor.
The Loyalist of the Flame Commendation now progresses correctly when players complete the rebalanced Playing the Part Commendation requirements.
Players bailing water from a bucket and quickly interacting with parts of the ship will now find the water is consistently bailed and no longer returns to the ship.
Grapple Guns can no longer pull items through ship grates or inside the ship’s brig.
Merchant Cargo Runs now progress Pirate and Ship Milestones.
Cargo Runs now track consistently within the Ship’s Log.
Two pirates can no longer attempt to occupy the same cannon at the same time.
Crew members disconnected from the game for longer than 10 minutes will now consistently have their resources returned to the ship’s Resource Barrels.
Commodity Crates discovered at sea now contribute the correct amount of Commendation progress when handed in.
Players can no longer duplicate a Hunting Spear by attempting to throw and load into a cannon at the same time.
Faction Battles now become available as soon as all players meet the eligibility requirements, without needing to restart the session.
During Faction Battles, players pledged to the same Faction can no longer leave it during an active battle.
Players returning to High Seas after sailing beneath the waves during a Tall Tale should no longer find themselves immune to fire damage.
Merchant Alliance representatives now remain interactable for the crew after a player leaves while redeeming Commodities.
‘Shores of Gold’ – During this Tall Tale, players can no longer repeat the Gold Hoarder battle to retrieve additional skulls by re-entering the room using a Grapple Gun.
Custom Seas
A range of usability, text and localisation improvements have been made across the Command and Quick Command Menus.
Ashen Lords defeated in Custom Seas now drop their intended rewards.
Players approaching the map boundaries in Legendary Locations while using the Free Camera will now be safely returned to the playable area.
Weapon override options in Custom Seas no longer allow players to equip a cutlass in both weapon slots.
Deed completion notifications now appear correctly when earned while using the Free Camera.
Visual and Audio
Lanterns, Grapple Gun ammo and blowpipe darts no longer appear in players’ hands when switching items while crouching.
Blowpipe reload animations now appear correctly when players quickly switch dart types.
Blowpipe dart ammo indicators now update in real time when players quickly switch dart types.
Blowpipe darts now disappear correctly after being fired.
The Fashionista’s Finery Gloves now more appropriately match the colour of the Hat of Unfeasibly Glorious Fame.
Shots fired into the bottom deck of a Sloop now show water splashes clearly without being obscured by smoke effects.
Pets now stay correctly positioned in cannons when viewed by others at a distance.
Controllers no longer vibrate when players use an Ashen Winds Skull or Horn of Fair Winds while climbing a ladder.
Environment
Crews diving to Voyages should no longer collide with sea rocks when surfacing.
Players can no longer pick up treasure through shelves in the Sanctuary of the Banished at Flame’s End.
Skeleton Camp braziers now remain visibly lit at the intended distance.
Players will now move around the lighthouse island in the Seas of Sailor’s Grave as expected.
User Interface
Attempting to sell Ashen Chests or Mermaid Gems to the wrong Trading Company now triggers the correct guidance message.
Text Chat and Zoom In/Out can now share the same controller keybind.
Guild Invite Friends menus can now be navigated correctly with controller inputs.
Text and Localisation
Reaching Allegiance level 90 with the Guardians of Fortune now displays the correct Title earned.
The Recovery of a Secret Shipment Voyage now displays correctly when attempting to dive to the location from the Quest Table.
Grammar issues have been corrected during dialogue with characters in The Reaper’s Lair.
Performance and Stability
Improvements have been made to game stability to reduce scenarios where players unexpectedly exit the game or become disconnected from their session.
Players will no longer experience unexpected game closure after joining a session through an invite from a player on PlayStation®5.
Players should no longer encounter Glassbeard errors after switching Pirate Profiles and queuing for Faction Battles.
Players leaving a session and returning to the main menu should no longer experience an indefinite wait on the ‘Finding Crew Ledger’ message when attempting to join their next session prior to closing the game.
Known Issues
To learn more about known issues in Sea of Thieves currently being tracked and their status, head over to our Known Issues support site article.
