The Shores of Gold Are A Let Down

In my journey to do more of Sea of Thieves’ Tall Tales, I finally managed to start the Shroudbreaker Tall Tale, in which we take the cursed artifact we’ve been putting together in the previous Tall Tales and finally go to the Shores of Gold, the abandoned island hidden within the fog and the red sea, which destroys all ships that pass through it. The Shroudbreaker though allows us to pass through without harm, and we finally reach this mystical place.

Except, well, it’s… kinda lame.

There’s not even much gold. Even Captain Briggsy, in her journals, is disappointed at how little gold there is.

Okay, sure, the whole story is that Wraithbone, the Gold Hoarder, took all the gold from the island and stuck it in his vault where he now resides, but there’s no gold at all. Nothing. Not even a handful of scattered coins on the beach. In fact, most of the island is actually pretty damn empty, with mostly just trees, rocks and some old, Aztec-style ruins. There’s a large line of statues in the middle of the island, but they don’t really do much, only one of them is of actual use and the fourth randomly has a journal on it. I don’t know how you’re supposed to get to that journal without using the cannons on your ship to fire yourself there, it’s a massive pain, but all the statues are otherwise unremarkable.

There are also four vaults on the island, all of which contain a key, which is used to unlock another vault which contains a bigger key. These are not only unremarkable but are also not at the locations at which they’re named after. The south vault is more south-east and the north vault is more north-west. The vaults aren’t even that interesting either, and one of them is filled with bullshit instakill spikes with bullshit hitboxes. They’re mostly identical to the vaults you see in normal Gold Hoarder voyages, except, again, there’s no gold in them. And you have to carry the keys you get from these vaults all the way across the damn island.

Aside from that though? Nothing. There’s pretty much nothing there. No loot, nothing. Okay, sure, the whole place is filled with skeletons and was abandoned and is hard to access, but, like, you can find more on Cutlass Cay, a tiny strip of sand with like 3 trees on it, than you can find on the Shores of Gold, a massive island that takes forever to travel across. And there’s pretty much no trace of any of the gold that’s supposed to have been here either. There’s no gold tint to the sand, no statues with the gold scraped off, no small piles of forgotten coins, absolutely nothing. Not even any barrels either, most of the barrels we found were empty, which was annoying considering skeletons constantly spawn nearby.

If anything, the only exciting part is the pitch black obstacle course you have to travel down to fight the Gold Hoarder. Which is filled with even more bullshit instakill spikes with bullshit hitboxes. I thought it was just me, but seasoned pirates Bacxaber and Zach were also getting killed by these spikes, even though they clearly cleared them. There are very few checkpoints either. There’s one before the long stretch of spike traps, one after the spike traps and then one inside Gold Hoarder’s den, and that’s kinda it.

Even Gold Hoarder’s lair isn’t impressive. Sure, there are piles of gold everywhere, but they’re more just like golden lumps. And there’s not really that much of it, all things considered. No statues, no coin purses, no crowns or goblets or anything like that, just… gold lumps. Surrounded by tattered wooden architecture and stone walls. Gold Hoarder himself barely lives up to the name, what with only really having a golden jaw and wearing mostly just green, tattered robes, and spouts the same five lines of dialogue, while only doing like 5 attacks. He’ll attack with a sword or pistol, do an AoE explosion that throws you across the room, summon some annoyingly tanky minions or just teleport, because he can. There’s no real tactics, you just keep on shooting him until he dies, and use the constantly respawning barrels of food to keep yourself alive.

Like, this place SHOULD be really cool, but it’s not. It’s just a ton of walking and there’s hardly any gold. Which doubly sucks because Shroudbreaker is supposed to be the end of the Sea of Thieves Tall Tale saga. And it’s… lame.

In fact, it’s so lame that, once you kill Gold Hoarder, Ramsey, the Pirate Lord, just instantly appears in front of you, says this was all just a challenge of his, blatantly insults the Morning Star crew you fought to avenge, then tells you that you can’t take any of the gold and buggers off. Not that there’s any gold to even take. The ONLY gold you get from this is from selling Gold Hoarder’s skull to the Order of Souls, but since it takes like an hour to get said skull, you’re better off doing pretty much anything else.

Considering this is the big finale, the big reveal, what you’ve been fighting to reach? It’s a let down. A massive let down. A massive, boring island, of which only a tiny bit is ever used. All that time spent remaking the Shroudbreaker, for pretty much nothing.

Well, except having to do the same thing five times over for a curse, but still…