The Sea of Thieves 2024 Teaser Thingy

I don’t normally follow Sea of Thieves updates up close and personal, but I somehow managed to stumble across the Sea of Thieves 2024 Preview Event just before it started, and damn, I am glad I watched it. Sure, Season 11 has been pretty good, what with it giving people a reason to rank up with factions again, but what’s been teased for Seasons 12 to 14 are, well, pretty game-changing. The 2024 preview only goes over some of the major upcoming changes, but damn, everything they teased was great. If anything, the very last thing they teased, Owl pets, was kinda weak compared to the main content. Of course, this is all likely to change in some way, and we’ve not been given any numbers or stats, but it’s all still cool.

Starting with Season 12, we’re getting two new weapons, one new cannonball type and one new throwable. Sea of Thieves is 5 years old and has only had four choices of weapon for all these years, so suddenly getting two is almost weird. The new weapons are throwing knives and a double-barrelled pistol. The throwing knives can be used both as melee weapons and thrown weapons, and their charge attack looks kinda like a TF2 Spy’s backstab, where you are slowed down but do more damage. Thrown knives remain objects in the world and can be picked up by anyone and thrown again. The double-barrelled pistol, it seems to kinda be a two-shot pistol but with less range and accuracy, but you can also charge it up and fire both shots at once for a blunderbuss-like effect. Honestly I think this will render the flintlock pistol useless, since its damage is already kinda weak, and the eye of reach rifle does things better at range anyway.

The new throwable and cannonball look cool. Scattershot seems to work somewhat similarly to a normal cannonball, but with far less range and damage but more spread. The idea is to make a ton of little level 1 holes rather than one big level 2 or level 3 hole. I think these will be more of a nuisance than an actual threat, but it’ll definitely be annoying to solo players and people on low supplies. The Bonecaller on the other hand is a new throwable item that can also be fired from a cannon. It spawns skeletons nearby that are friendly to the player who threw or fired the Bonecaller. Again, these seem more annoying than anything else, but summoning minions is always fun.

But on top of that, we’re also getting the Windcaller. This item, frankly, looks overpowered as fuck. Not only can you use it to propel yourself at speeds backwards in the water, speed up row boats, put out fires, knock players away AND use it to negate fall damage, but you can use it TO SPEED YOUR SHIP UP! Which is fucking insane. The devs said the Windcaller will have a charge to it (similar to Disney-Sticks or Skulls of Siren Song) but damn, that’s stupidly powerful. I assume it’ll probably be a world drop similar to a trident of dark tides or something, because having a Windcaller on demand sounds insane.

We’re also getting walkable harpoons. Basically, you’ll be able to fire your ship’s harpoon at something and just walk across. Awesome for both unloading loot and boarding an enemy ship.

Season 13 seems to be focused on Flameheart, and about fucking time. They only revealed one thing about Season 13, and that’s the return of the Burning Blade, via which YOU can become a world event. Basically, the Burning Blade, Flameheart’s personal ship, is going to wander around the Sea of Thieves, and Flameheart is inviting you to climb aboard, take the ship for yourself and fight for Flameheart. In return, you get to use a giant flamethrower on the front of the ship, access to 10 cannons (five on each side of the ship), riches beyond your wildest dreams, a crew of skeletons to help you run the Burning Blade and some other cool stuff. Basically, it seems like you get to be a MEGA REAPER, doubly so since everyone can see you and target you.

That being said, that was all they revealed for Season 13, apart from some new island bases with puzzles and stuff underneath, which have loot inside, loot that Flameheart wants.

Season 14 though, this season is going to be tied to trickery and stealth. Dubbed “Pirates of Mischief”, the details aren’t as concrete as Season 12, but the idea is to be able to shake up the meta in a more stealthy way. You’ll be able to sneak around, hang off the side of ships and disguise yourself as a treasure chest to get the drop on enemies. Player-made traps will become a thing, allowing you to place a trap for skeletons, ghosts or other players, although what these traps will be like, I don’t know – from what they described, I’m thinking something that locks you in place or stuns you. We’ll also be getting two new weapons that are more utility-based than anything else. The Blowdart Gun will have different types of ammo that seem to do minimum damage, but allows you to do things like playing sounds to trick people, luring skeletons away from specific areas and also apparently allowing you to track treasure and players.

Finally, Season 14 promises a new method of mobility: the grappling gun. Looking a bit like the eye of reach rifle, the grappling gun has five ammo, but allows you to grapple to new locations or harpoon loot towards you. Frankly, I think EVERYONE is going to use this new weapon when it comes out, because the vast mobility will just be too strong.

The very last thing they teased was an owl pet, but, eh, I… I kinda don’t care. I got my pet cat, Ringo, but I hardly use them.

Either way, I’m excited for all of this stuff. While having to learn new combat strategies and needing to adapt to a new meta sounds daunting, I think it will be fun.