Sea of Thieves' latest update adds a cursed chest so angry it'll set your boat on fire
Plus a fancy Viva Piñata ship set in the premium store.
It's middle-month, and so time for another Sea of Thieves updates, with February's offering arriving in the form of Chests of Rage - which, as you'll already know if you read the headline, includes a cursed chest so positively apoplectic, it can set your ship on fire.
Perhaps surprisingly, the Chest of Rage is the first new cursed chest to be added to Sea of Thieves' since the piratical multiplayer adventure launched just shy of two years ago. It's a doozy though, burning hotter and hotter once hauled onboard a ship until it's mad enough to release a fiery shockwave, setting both ship and crew alight.
Attentive pirates can keep it cool by slopping it with water, but, intriguingly, the shockwave can be equally damaging to non-crew players, other ships, and skeletons. As such, it has strategic potential as a weapon in the right hands - particularly as it's possible to trigger the chest's shockwave faster, and sort-of on-demand, by attacking it.
Chests of Rage - which can be sold to the Gold Hoarders, or to the Masked Stranger at the Reaper's Hideout for double gold - can be acquired by completing limited-time Bounty of Rage Voyages purchased from Duke at any Outpost. They're also found randomly in the world and are guaranteed rewards when completing the Molten Sands Fortress in the Devil's Roar.
Speaking of which, the Molten Sands Fortress is the only active Skeleton Fort in the Sea of Thieves this month, and has been buffed considerably for the occasion, requiring players to defeat both Ashen Skeletons and Skeleton Lords.
Rewards will be appropriately increased, and include Chests of Rage and Ashen Chests, with players able to acquire four more Tomes, plus associated Commendations and cosmetics if they're able to track down the keys required to open the latter.
Today's update also features a particularly lovely Wild Rose ship set for purchase using doubloons in Duke's Black Market, plus sword combat improvements, new hair and beard options for Pirate Legends, as well as accessibility enhancements, quality of life changes, gameplay balancing, and bug fixes - all of which are detailed in today's patch notes.
Unsurprisingly too, Chests of Rage brings a range of new updates to Sea of Thieves' premium store. There's are new emotes, pet cosmetics, and a new set of Charity Sails, with proceeds this time going to St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital.
Also of note is the new Pirate Appearance Potion, which, as hinted in its name, enables players to change their pirate's appearance without losing any of their progress - previously, re-rolling a pirate meant starting for scratch. This'll cost 149 Ancient Coins, so a little over £1 or so. And finally, the Pirate Emporium also brings a pricey but striking new ship set themed around Rare's much-loved gardening sim Viva Piñata, as seen above.
That's pretty much it for this month, but notably March will usher in Sea of Thieves' second anniversary. Rare hasn't talk up it's plans for the occasion, but it'll be interesting to see if the developer - and a certain evil pirate - has something big in-store, given the various meandering plot threads teased over the last 12 months seem perilously close to reaching a head.