Update: Forsaken Shores arrives!
Patch Notes 1.3.0- The Forsaken Shores
After a short delay, the third major content update finally comes to Sea of Thieves. Forsaken Shores, a free download, brings with it a new region to explore that expands the world map, bringing us a land filled with environmental peril in the form of active volcanoes, gushing geysers, and more. The full Patch Notes can be found here, and a video showcase of the update is embedded below.
Finally, Rare’s weekly Developer update features a very special guest star… check it out embedded below!
Gameplay Additions
Of course the main draw of 1.3.0 is “The Devil’s Roar”, a new region of islands to the south-west of the map. One outpost and fourteen new islands are accompanied by new “ashen” voyages, which can only be purchased or found in the Devil’s Roar, and reward you with exclusive ashen loot that’s worth greater value. These higher rewards come at a price- islands in the Devil’s Roar are also a grave threat to your safety, as at any time a volcanic eruption could trigger. These begin with an earthquake warning, and then during the eruption dozens of molten rocks will cascade out from the volcano, as if dozens of cannonballs are being fired in random directions at once. If that wasn’t enough, spots throughout the island will turn into flowing lava zones and the water surrounding the island will become superheated, touching either of which will cause you damage.
To aid you in tackling these perils, a new tool is at our disposal- Rowboats! Rowboats can be found washed up throughout the world on beaches. Climbing into a rowboat allows you to grab the oars and operate it, and rowing to the rear of any ship offers you the option to press an input and dock the rowboat to your vessel. Now take it with you to the Devil’s Roar, and use it to your advantage! If you’re afraid of a volcanic eruption, park your ship a safe distant to sea and row to shore on your newfound rowboat. You can load supplies and treasure into it, and haul it all back to your ship when you’re ready.
Seaposts are also new, and you’ll find two of them in each world region (Devil’s Roar included). Seaposts consist essentially of a small rock at sea that someone has built a dock on, and for the time being their only purpose is to offer you a discounted price on one or two cosmetic shop items. Seaposts will factor into the Cargo Run voyages coming in the Week 3 update of Forsaken Shores.
Finally, a much welcome addition comes in the form of Barrel mechanic updates. Consider these “Barrels 2.2”, they’ve managed to implement some quality of life improvements on the inventory system after “Barrels 2.0” caused a lot of short term panic.
With the new update, we now have the option to Take All and Store All items in a stack within a barrel, which speeds up resource management significantly. Furthermore, our cursor now automatically ignores stacks of items that we cannot hold any more of, instantly jumping to the first available stack that we can take. Resources that you can’t hold any more of are marked out in red, and the delay when closing a UI menu has been removed.
Also, barrels can now contain parchments of Voyages!
These changes are a godsend, and the only remaining room for improvement lies in the roundabout way we currently have to select Cursed Cannonballs- here’s hoping a change comes on that front next!
Collectibles and Cosmetics
As with any new in game event, Forsaken Shores brings with it new Bilge Rat challenges with new Doubloons to earn, and time limited cosmetics to purchase. This time, there are 23 standard commendations totaling 185 Doubloons for the first two weeks of the event, with more commendations being added for Weeks 3 and 4. As of the last event, these doubloon rewards are no longer time limited to the duration of this event, they can be earned at any date moving forward as well! There are also 2 new titles earned by completing these commendations, with more yet to come in week 3.
For cosmetics, of course there are time limited rewards that are purchasable with the Doubloons, and other new cosmetics that are not time limited.
With doubloons, you can purchase the weapons and ship livery items for the new “Forsaken Ashes” cosmetic set, with a molten metal theme. Each ship livery item (hull, sails, figurehead, and flag) costs 40 doubloons, and each weapon (pistol, blunderbuss, eye of reach, cutlass) costs 15 doubloons. All of these ARE time limited to the Forsaken Shores campaign, so make sure you earn those doubloons and buy any items you want before they’re gone!
There’s quite a bit more however, and the rest of the items are NOT time limited! First of all, the rest of the Forsaken Ashes set can be purchased in shops at Morrow’s Peak outpost (in the Devil’s Roar)- but only after you’ve earned the Devil’s Cartographer title. Check out my Ultimate Guide to the Forsaken Shores update for details.
NOTE NOTE NOTE NOTE !!!!
There are also two other complete sets, the crab themed Ocean Crawler and the Kraken set, which are also only purchasable at Morrow’s Peak Outpost. These sets include all equipment, clothing, weapons, and ship liveries- check out the official Forsaken Shores web page for a close look at every item in all three of these sets.
Finally, the Huntress figurehead (an homage to Rare’s Perfect Dark protagonist Joanna Dark) is available for purchase in the game, after having been a Comic-Con giveaway up until this point.
Tweaks, Fixes, and Known Issues
You’ll notice quickly when you talk to Duke in the tavern that his shop has a new UI, split between two pages. The First page showcases the time limited event items, and the second page is his persistent shop items.
Voyages that have been voted on by the crew will now defaultly stay at the forefront of your voyage radial, instead of being pushed down by messages in a bottle.
As for fixes, the most notable ones are that Gold Skeletons can now be rusted by buckets of water (THANK YOU) and reputation levels are properly displaying on the pause screen. Check out the full patch notes for a complete list of bug fixes.
And on to Known Issues, with such a large update of course a couple new bugs are to be expected. There appears to be an occasional visual glitch when operating the rowboat in which the Oars will appear disconnected from the boat, and walking on a rowboat can have a stuttery appearance. Also, Mermaid Statues have been temporarily disabled due to a performance issue.
