2022 was a big year for the pirate open-world adventure game Sea of Thieves, with several huge updates alongside many Adventures focused on the ongoing story arc shaping the game world, sometimes through community-driven decisions. Much of the Sea of Thieves 2022 roadmap focused on new customization options for players and new ways to play with significant updates like captaincy. Season 8 also introduced a faster way for players to battle other players with PVP on demand, beginning the race for the highly desirable skeleton and ghost curses.
Little is currently known about Season 9 beyond the roadmap listing new social options for crews, but the latest time-limited Adventure, The Secret Wilds, teases the possibility of upcoming new content in the form of a new location and monster as part of the ongoing story and the growing lore around the Ancient civilization that originally populated the Sea of Thieves. Some fans are not keen on the game's tendency to recycle previous content, with many crying out for brand-new content such as new map regions to explore or new monsters to battle, and thankfully a few intriguing clues suggest exciting content could be on the horizon.
A New Location For A Hidden Ancient Temple
The latest Adventure, The Secret Wilds, continues the story from The Rogue's Legacy, as players track down Captain Briggsy's memories in search of a cure for Tasha's skeleton curse. Captain Briggsy, who suffered the same affliction, believes it resides inside a secret Ancient temple. Near the end of The Secret Wilds, players learn the temple might be in the Sea of the Damned, which the Adventure also tells players has 'the power to manifest memories - like the Wilds, as it existed long ago'. This information and changes to The Wilds' foliage have led some fans to speculate a possible upheaval of the Wilds map region, which like The Devil's Roar, belongs to some of the least popular world map areas. A future re-vamp of a somewhat unpopular place would make sense in a live-service game that is actively adding and changing its level design, such as the transition of Golden Sands Outpost to the game's first pirate port.
However, when considering that players returned to the Sea of The Damned in A Hunter's Cry, which recreated the Sea Dog's Tavern, it's possibly more likely players may head back to the Sea of The Damned but explore its depths. In the Secret Wilds, the missing journal pages indicate the temple and its cure are underwater, and the existing world map also features several ancient underwater shrines that could get replicated elsewhere. Furthermore, Sea of Thieves also features many secrets that most players haven't found, like the uncharted islands with surrounding underwater ancient ruins, which the developers could utilize. Therefore, flooding the Wilds region would probably make little sense for the temple location, though the evolution of an entire zone like The Wilds could potentially occur in more sizable future updates.
A New Monster To Guard A Skeleton Cure
The Secret Wilds Adventure also reveals clues that imply Sea of Thieves might be getting a new type of monster, with the missing pages of Tasha's journal ending with a drawing of what appears to be a 3-headed monster with red eyes. In Sea of Thieves, players can already battle and find the Kraken, the infamous sea best of naval folklore, which they got to see more of in the Pirate's Life update. Various types of megalodons have also been around for some time, albeit most players only got to see the Shrouded Ghost recently in Adventure 3, wherein players also learn that this elusive meg can travel between worlds, namely the Sea of the Damned and the Sea of Thieves itself.
The ability to travel between worlds might mean players get to battle or summon the Shrouded Ghost again or a similar meg-like creature. However, this seems less likely when we consider the specifics of the drawing and Madame Olivia's words in the Adventure that 'a great evil' lingers in the temple. In Ancient Greek mythology, one of the most well-known three-headed monsters is the Hydra, which also features in Disney's Hercules. Similarly, giant sea serpents from maritime lore and Sea of Thieves already has snakes on land, so a sea serpent or hydra-like creature could be feasible. It is interesting to speculate what kind of monster belonging to the time of the Ancients might potentially guard a skeleton curse cure in the Sea of the Damned and whether players will get to see either.
Speculation aside, regardless of whether players get a new monster or location along the way, the prospect of a skeleton cure is also intriguing. The significance of a skeleton cure in the ongoing lore of the Captain Flameheart and the central story remains to be seen, along with how it might influence what happens next in the evolving pirate world.
Sea of Thieves is available on PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.