Sea of Thieves goes free-to-play through the weekend to celebrate 2nd anniversary

Sea of Thieves turns two years old this Friday, and in celebration Rare has made the multiplayer pirate adventure free-to-play on Xbox Live through March 23. There’s a bunch more coming to Sea of Thieves with the new anniversary update, including a dev stream scheduled for Friday, second chances at some exclusive items from prior updates, and substantial changes to Arena mode.

If you haven’t tried Sea of Thieves yet, it’s the perfect time to do so. Not just because it’s free-to-play for now, but because there’s a good chance you’re stuck at home looking for something to do. As long as you’re an Xbox Live subscriber, you can log into Sea of Thieves for free right now until Monday, March 23.

The dev stream is scheduled for 11am PT / 2pm ET / 6pm GMT on Friday, March 20 over on the Sea of Thieves Mixer channel. Rare is giving away the Spinal figurehead as a MixPot reward during the livestream, but if you log in during the event at any point you’ll be rewarded with the Eye of Reach two-handed weapon.

Beginning Friday, March 20, Sea of Thieves is celebrating the events of The Hungering Deep, Cursed Sails, and Forsaken Shores by giving sailors a second chance to earn some of the previously limited-run collectibles that were offered during those events.

Finally, Arena mode is heading into its “next chapter,” which goes live in April and is currently available to insiders. Namely, maps are being removed completely in favor of a single chest marked by a shiny beacon beaming down from the sky. That’ll remove the shuffle of checking the map and adjusting your sails to find the treasure, making for a more focused hunt for both you and your competitors. And to make things even more close-quartered and chaotic, maps are smaller and the round timer will be 15 minutes instead of 24.

Sea of Thieves recently got its big Heart of Fire update, which adds a new Tall Tale, new banana-themed clothes for your pets and weapons, new projectiles, and a bunch of QoL updates and bug fixes. With its second anniversary update adding even more, it seems Sea of Thieves isn’t raising its sails any time soon.

Source: Gamesradar.com