Sea of Thieves Captaincy Completes the Pirate Dream

It’s 9pm on a Monday night and the captaincy update has recently gone live. My noble crew of three is preparing for our first trip on my newly purchased brigantine ship, lovingly named after One Piece, the Thousand Sunny. It’s shining bright sun hanging over the bow of the ship. Adorned by the wheel is its name with a skull and bones, and a sword grasped within its jaws.

l gathered commissions of voyages from the shipwright, leading to tales beyond the Sea of Thieves. “After all this time, I’m finally a captain of a worthy ship and crew” I thought. We set forth, raising anchor, and lowering the sails, as the Thousand Sunny set off on its maiden voyage. We were set to destroy a fleet of ghost ships terrorizing an island nearby. When we arrived, the crew fired every cannon with gusto, as each phantom boat was taken out one by one. 

I managed to take some video of our first journey on the Thousand Sunny, which you can enjoy below. My mic levels were off at the time, for which I hope you don’t mind.

Towing in our ghostly loot, we came across another player. I was skeptical at first, but they insisted they were friendly and meant no harm. When he pointed out his crew on a nearby island, I did not notice that out in the distance another potential threat was setting sail. But I want to tell you more about what makes this game and its most recent update so special.

Thanks to Sea of Thieves’ Season Seven “Captaincy” update, almost everything players have asked for is now in the game. Deeper customization on your ship, the ability to save ship loadouts, store voyages a plenty (essentially quests to an RPG), decorate your ship, and log every move your vessel makes. This captaincy update even adds a company that will sort all your treasure for you, called the Sovereigns. I’ve personally played more than several hours of this update with friends as well as solo. As of this major update, I can say with certainty that Rare has outdone themselves.

With your hard earned gold, there’s a ton of options to deck out your ship from the get go at any outposts’ shipwright. You can also purchase scrolls containing voyages to store on your ship, trinkets to adorn the walls and ends of the lower deck, and furniture to enrich your captain’s quarters. There’s also the option to purchase supplies like cannonballs, and food directly onto your ship’s storage barrels. Players can unlock further decorations by achieving certain milestones on their vessel. See the trailer below on exactly what this update has in store.

Buying a ship and gathering a crew of players to work it feels genuine, fulfilling, and another big goal for pirates to achieve. With the plethora of activities that have been added since the game first launched back in 2018, I can’t stress enough how much I love this game! There really isn’t any other experience like it. The amount of stories you can make to tell to your friends goes a long way. But enough about that, I’m sure you probably want to know what happened after we set sail with an unseen threat in the distance.

As soon as we took off, I saw another ship hailing behind us. Assuming it was our new friend, I rang the ship’s bell and hailed them. That’s when the first sign of something wrong came up. They were building speed and gaining on us fast. They fired a harpoon and towed in our ship as they began to board, one of the players shouting “Attack!”. This was not our friend we made at the docks, but an enemy we did not see coming. 

It must have been a solid 20 or so minutes of gunshots, cannons, and firebombs between each ship. Cannonballs barraged each of us, blasting holes in our hulls. Fire burned our ship’s deck as we rushed to put it out. We scrambled for repairs and laid an assault, while we bailed out what water was pouring into the bilge. The fighting lasted until dawn in between a storm, a megalodon attack, and a few skeleton island cannons that fired into our battle. As we reigned in on them with one final barrage (video clip below), they finally sank. Their loot was ours, and we hightailed it out of there.

How many other games can make you tell a story like that? I highly recommend anyone who wants a game that’s unique, to play this and build memories that will last years. You can grab it on Xbox Game Pass, Series X/S, and on Steam. If you have played before, definitely check out captaincy and it’s features.

I’ll see you all on the Sea of Thieves. Captain Romano, signing off.