Following on from the recent news that Sea of Thieves is moving away from its monthly updates to a three-monthly ‘Seasons’ structure, further details have now been announced.

Perhaps the biggest change is coming in the form of the 100 level Renown addition, which will see players rewarded for many activities that currently don’t have tangible benefits beyond just being fun (which is, of course, it’s own reward for players like myself who tend to take a more relaxed approach to playing Rare’s piratey life sim).

Though concerns were raised at the news of a Season Pass/Battle Pass-esque ‘Plunder Pass’, the update seems to allay most of the concerns – the cost is reasonable, coming in at 999 Ancient Coins (around £8.50/$9.99) and the content on offer will be cosmetic, timed-exclusive items. Further discounts will be given to Plunder Pass owners on items purchased from the in-game Emporium, giving further incentive to purchase the Plunder Pass if cosmetics and emotes are your thing.

Otherwise, all 100 levels of Renown are available for free to all players, with plenty of items, emotes and even currency on offer as rewards for progression.

A brief overview of what’s coming is in the video below. The Sea of Thieves servers will be down for an unspecified amount of time from 10am GMT tomorrow (28/01/21) for the game’s updates to be rolled out. Happy Pirating, everyone!