Rare has shared its first Sea of Thieves news of 2023, revealing a new pet rock emote, matchmaking tweaks, and fixing the notorious “turkey walling” exploit. Many PvP players found the exploit cheap and annoying, and have been begging Rare to fix it for a while. Turkey walling is a fan term to describe an exploit where players used crates or chests to shield themselves from cannonballs.
The video also goes over more about the upcoming new adventure for the game called The Secret Wilds, which will serve as a continuation of the previous adventure, The Rogue’s Legacy. The Silent Wilds continues on the storyline about Tasha’s curse and will be available for free from January 19 to February 2. Rare is also offering a full-color calendar in the Sea of Thieves store.
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Additionally, a new minotaur-inspired ship set called the mythical Misadventures will become available in the Pirate Emporium later this month. The emporium will also offer players a Labyrinth Looter Weapon Set, a minotaur-based outfit called the Labyrinth Looter Costume, and a Charge Up emote. Other new emotes coming to the game include an oar-inspired emote, where players take out an oar to do some poses and a pet rock emote, where players pull out a rock to talk to.
Sea of Thieves senior designer George Orton further shared that he and the other developers are working on improving the PvP gameplay for the title. Rare will be adjusting the matchmaking for online play, which includes adding in same-Faction battles when matchmaking takes too long, meaning there should always be a battle available for players. Same Faction Battles will improve cross-stamp migration, allowing more crews to find each other as part of the migration process. Online players will also earn increased compensation even when their ship sinks. Finally, Rare is also boosting the number of available arenas in PvP from six to 50.
