Guide to the Sunken Pearl Tall Tale
The Sunken Kingdom awaits…
All seems lost, but a single glint of hope still shines in the darkness of the ocean deep…
Tall Tales are story-based voyages in the Sea of Thieves that you can experience alone or with your crew. They tell a narrative and involve solving puzzles, using unique mechanics, and overcoming perils.
The Sunken Pearl Tall Tale is the second part of the A Pirate’s Life saga, which began with A Pirate’s Life and depicts the epic adventures of Captain Jack Sparrow from Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, finally crossing over into the world of Sea of Thieves!
This guide walks through The Sunken Pearl Tall Tale, detailing what to expect at each step, how to solve the hidden Side Quest, as well as where to find those pesky Hidden Journals. This guide may contain spoilers, so read at your own risk.
Rewards for The Sunken Pearl
- Complete The Sunken Pearl Tale for the first time to unlock the Revenge of the Silver Blade Cutlass cosmetic.
- Find every Hidden Journal, and finish the hidden Side Quest (more on these below), and you’ll unlock the Revenge of the Silver Blade Capstan
- Every time you complete the Tale, you also pocket 8,000 Gold
Overview of “The Sunken Pearl”
The second Tale in the “A Pirate’s Life” saga follows this structure:
- Sail to a beacon that marks where you will dive below the waves and explore a shipwreck
- Enter a Siren Spire, working your way through the levels by solving puzzles and fighting enemies
- Leave the Spire, enter the Siren Citadel, and work your way up through even more puzzles and enemies, culminating in a final action sequence
- Save the prisoners and then exit the Sunken Kingdom, having completed the Tale
Note: We will first walk through the “Core Story”, segmenting off the Side Quest and Journal Locations for lower down in the Guide if you wish to avoid them as spoilers. While walking through the Core Story, we will keep descriptions of your challenges vague while pointing pirates in the right direction, so as not to ruin the Story, Lore, or Action.
The Side Quest and Journal Locations will feature heavy spoilers, so read at your own risk!
Beginning the Tall Tale
The Tall Tale can be started from any Outpost in the game, which is where you’ll spawn if you load in to Play from the Main Menu in “Adventure Mode”. Simply walk out to the beach to find the mysterious Castaway huddled around a green campfire.
If you choose to load in to Play from the Main Menu using the “A Pirate’s Life Mode”, you will still enter the Sea of Thieves shared world and spawn in at an outpost, though you’ll spawn directly at the Castaway’s Camp and skip any other pop ups that may distract you when first loading into a session.
In either case, approach the wall backdrop behind the Castaway, and find the conch shell next to a tattered old book. You’ll see the pop-up menu for “The Sunken Pearl” and the option to Vote for Tall Tale. Doing so with your crew will prompt the Castaway to deliver introductory dialogue, and now you’re on your way!
Reaching the Sunken Kingdom
Once The Castaway is finished, return to your boat parked at the outpost’s dock, and flip through the pages of the Tall Tale Book now in your Quest Inventory. There’s a map telling you to head westward of Old Salt’s Atoll, and as you sail in that direction, you’ll see a blue/white swirling beacon of light. At the base of the light you’ll find floating debris- time to park your ship and take a dive!
Follow the “breadcrumbs” of ship debris deeper and deeper into the depths (pausing over columns of air bubbles every so often will replenish your breath), until eventually, you will find the Sunken Ship you came for.
Find your way into the hull of the ship, and explore until you find a key that will open the Captain’s Cabin. There you’ll find the item you need to progress, which opens up a cave to the starboard side of the sunken ship- an entrance to the Siren Spire.
Climbing the Spire
Once inside, you’ll run into transparent “doors” that only open when you shoot or slice at the glowing coral bulb nearby. After climbing up into the main open chamber, you’ll face off against a wave of new enemies, and after defeating them all, a Siren Heart will drop. You’ll notice various statues and a wall painting of those same statues, though one is missing something. Slicing or shooting at the Siren Statues allows you to pose their left arm, so mess with their configuration, and when you think you’ve got it right, swipe at the larger conch-horn wielding statue to test your “solution”.
If you’ve solved the puzzle, stone heads around the room will fill the chamber with water, raising you up to the “Second Level”. Here, another wall painting shows a different configuration of statues. Where can you find statues to pose to match this clue?
Once you solve the second puzzle, instead of raising the water, a geyser will become charged that shoots you from the second level up to the third level. The Third level contains a new set of statues and a new wall painting, though one of the statues is hidden out of the way and needs to be struck from a distance. Solving THIS puzzle will cause the water to rise a final time, bringing your crew to the top of the Spire.
Siren Attack!
Here you’ll find four “Tridents of Dark Tides”, which you can pick up and take with you as after the dialogue ends, you can swim out through the “windows” into the open sea above the ship wreck. Sirens will descend upon you in waves, but with strategic use of the Trident, you should be able to take them out. Eventually, defeating them all will cause a Siren Heart to drop, and this one is used just like the one from before.
If you follow on from the bow of the sunken ship, it points to a gigantic doorway with another Siren Statue puzzle on it, similar to the rest. If you solve this, the doorway will open, allowing entry to the Siren Citadel.
The Citadel
There’s a cave exit to the end of this room, putting you in another statue puzzle room, this time submerged in water. The trick here is that the Conch Horn statue is on the next level, only damageable by a ranged weapon through the coral-grate on the ceiling. This will drain the water level, and trigger another enemy attack. Use the pulley to lower the doorway and enter the next space.
In this big open room, a pulley will allow you to lower a platform that gets you to the upper level. Exploring this, you’ll find another statue puzzle, this time requiring all the statues to be attacked through coral bars we look on into the previous room. The Conch Horn statue is once again up above our heads, and somewhat tricky to spot. Solving this raises the water level once again.
Using the remaining pulley, you can rise above the high tide and head on through the next room, which contains another ship wreckage, though this one we’ll be aboard for an action sequence. Using the cannons, defeat waves of enemies across the room, and make sure to use the capstan when necessary to raise the ship itself up to higher areas.
The action will escalate but the gist is the same- you have cannons, enemies to shoot across the way, some enemies that will board your ship, and barrels of cannonballs and fruit to replenish your supplies as necessary. Once you’ve defeated all of the enemies, use the capstan to raise the ship all the way up, and then find a way out of this room.
Finale
After heading through a midway room, you enter another action arena, this being one that will fill with water and task you with defeating Sirens once again. There are Tridents of Dark Tides readily available, so take advantage and clear the enemies. After this, the water level will drop and you can swim through the chamber in the floor to the next area.
BEFORE you walk right on past and exit the Citadel, you’ll need to take notice of a coral jail cell with Mermaid Statues inside. Seem kinda fishy? Figure out what to do with these things, listen to the ending dialogue, and hand off your trusty quest item to the NPC, and NOW you’re allowed to leave the Citadel, with another Tall Tale completed!
To jump right into the NEXT Tall Tale, click here!
Yarrrr, here, there be Spoilers…
In the sections below, we’ll detail how to solve the secret Side Quest of The Sunken Pearl, and then at the very bottom of the Guide, detail the locations of 5 Hidden Journals. If you want to find this content on your own, stop reading here!
The Side Quest
Contained within The Citadel portion of the Tale, a minor side quest can be discovered by players that are really paying attention.
Step 1
In the wide open room with a pulley to lower and raise wooden platforms, after the water has been raised and you’ve used the pulley to make a platform path across to the top, instead of exiting to the right to continue the Tale, head to the left across the top of the other wooden platform. A small cave contains a hidden key
Step 2
Once you’re aboard the shipwreck in the citadel ready to use your cannons and blast some baddies, use that key you found to open the Captain’s Cabin of the wreck. Inside is a special treasure chest, pull it out and don’t forget about it after you’ve finished with all the waves of enemies.
Step 3
After taking the mystery chest with you to the next room, plop it down in front of the large stone door that you otherwise can’t open. The magical properties of the chest will open the chamber, which contains 5 etched scribblings in the walls. Read all 5 poems to complete the Side Quest.
Hidden Journals
- The Spire main room
In the very first large room of the Spire, after entering the first air-lock door, there’s a Journal under a leaning wooden structure up against a closed door-like space
2. Spire Main room, flooded
After filling the same room completely with water, swim around the grottos near the top until you find this hidden book
3. The Citadel- Entrance Room
In the large room after first entering the giant Citadel doors, leaning up against the wood on this ship wreck structure is the third journal
4. The Citadel- Underwater
After journal three, you exit a small tunnel into a room with more merfolk statue puzzles. Swim through an opening to the right out to a wider area and there’s a journal on a flat wooden deck-wreckage.
5. The Citadel- Pulley Room
In the large area where you need to use a pulley to lower the wooden platform, while progressing around the perimeter you hop across a ship cabin. Drop down into the cabin to find the final Tall Tale Journal
