Sea of Thieves gives players the chance to complete story-based Tall Tales that allow for unique puzzles and encounters, but the core gameplay loop is all about collecting treasures and selling them at outposts. Players can seek out buried treasure for the Gold Hoarders, they can hunt down bounties to collect rare skulls to sell to the Order of Souls, or they can acquire crates of goods to sell to the Merchant Alliance. Doing so rewards Sea of Thieves players with money, experience points, and more, so it's in players' best interests to collect as many treasures as possible.
A viral TikTok video shows what happens when a Sea of Thieves crew takes their treasure-hunting to the next level. It's unclear exactly where the clip originated, but TikTok account Sloopy_Ganggang uploaded a video showing a Sea of Thieves ship completely covered in treasures. There are so many treasures on the ship that the players had to start stacking skulls on the railings to make it all fit, and there's virtually no room to walk.
The way Sea of Thieves is designed, players can pretty much collect as much treasure as they want before they turn it in to the traders at Outposts for rewards. However, there is risk associated with this. While it may be more convenient to turn everything in all at once instead of making multiple visits to Sea of Thieves outposts, the longer players take to turn in their treasures, the more likely they are to be attacked by enemy players.
At the time of this writing, Sea of Thieves has five ships per server, and Rare plans on increasing the number at some point down the line, meaning it will be even more common for players to bump into enemy crews. These other Sea of Thieves players could be friendly, but many times players will find that they are hostile instead. Sea of Thieves players are encouraged to attack one another and steal loot for their own, so it would have been absolutely tragic for that to have happened to the people shown in the clip. Hours of work would've essentially been wasted if an enemy crew happened upon them and managed to sink their ship.
There are threats besides other players in Sea of Thieves to worry about as well. Sea of Thieves players can sometimes encounter deadly ghost ships and skeleton crews that can attack them just as easily as player-controlled pirates. Large sharks and other aquatic creatures also pose threats, not to mention the massive Sea of Thieves kraken that can rather easily sink a ship if players aren't properly prepared to face off with it.
And with all their cannons blocked by treasure, it would have been pretty difficult for these particular Sea of Thieves players to properly fight the kraken without throwing some of their goodies overboard. In any case, it's an impressive sight to see an entire deck filled with treasure, though it's not a feat that many Sea of Thieves players are likely to recreate on their own.
Sea of Thieves is out now for PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.