Sea of Thieves’ New Thriller Goals to Be ‘The Final Treasure Hunt’, With a Actual-Life Golden Cranium on Provide - binbi.com (2023)

Because the story goes, in 1730, Olivier Levasseur stood on the gallows, awaiting his execution for a lifetime of piracy – which had included the theft of an unlimited treasure haul from a Portuguese galleon, subsequently buried on the Seychelles island of Mahé. Requested for any final phrases, Levasseur eliminated a necklace from his neck, shouted, “My treasure for he who can perceive!”, and threw it into the watching crowd. That necklace was hung with a parchment that includes a 17-line cryptogram, seemingly providing the placement of his hidden riches. For greater than three centuries, treasure hunters have tried and did not decode the message on that parchment, and the gold stays misplaced to this present day.

It’s a becoming inspiration for Sea of Thieves’ new thriller, The Hoarder’s Hunt, which is able to take gamers each in-game and past within the hunt for a real-life treasure – a golden cranium, which can be awardedto the primary participant that solves a mess of puzzles (with extra bodily treasure for the subsequent 110 gamers to succeed in the tip of the method, and in-game rewards for others who participate). These puzzles won’t be fairly as troublesome to decode as Levasseur’s treasure, nevertheless it definitely received’t be a easy course of.

For Lead Designer Chris Davies, the promise of the occasion is easy: “To ship the final word treasure hunt. Sea of Thieves is 5 years outdated, and we’ve accomplished quite a lot of permitting gamers to pursue that pirate fantasy of looking for treasure, and digging it up. [So,] how can we provide the final word model of that? Taking it outdoors of the sport in addition to in-game and really supply real-world treasure for our neighborhood to look out.”

To try this, The Hoarder’s Hunt will characteristic out-of-game puzzles, unfold out throughout the net world, which is able to lead you to otherwise-locked in-game Voyages, which in flip result in extra out-of-game clues to decode. All of this can be wrapped up within the story of a brand new character, H, who – for the subsequent 4 weeks – will ship gamers cryptic messages, serving to direct them to their subsequent objective, resulting in a race to the prize (and you may signal as much as obtain H’s first message now). The primary participant to complete that remaining Voyage will obtain the golden cranium as their reward.

Other than Levasseur’s gold, the occasion has been impressed by different treasure hunts, from Cadbury’s Conundrum promotion (which supplied actual golden eggs for those who may remedy complicated puzzle books), to Prepared Participant One’s story about an internet hunt with huge real-life rewards. But it surely’s additionally a response to earlier Sea of Thieves occasions. Earlier than launch, Uncommon arrange a quest to earn real-life golden bananas, and the sport’s first Thriller occasion noticed gamers cracking the case of who killed Sea Canine DeMarco. However The Hoarder’s Hunt goals to enhance on each.

The hunt for the Golden Bananas noticed fewer and fewer gamers capable of take part till its finish – The Hoarder’s Hunt will stay open to all proper till its conclusion. In the meantime, the Thriller of DeMarco was pretty open-ended, resulting in a really lengthy thriller, dominated by clues solely from Uncommon’s personal social channels. This hunt can be way more open nevertheless it’ll be time-limited, giving gamers extra fascinating puzzles, however with an endgoal all the time in sight.

To do that, Uncommon has labored with real-life puzzlemasters, tasked with creating actually mind-boggling duties that may ship gamers all around the web within the hunt for the subsequent resolution – with a view to creating a really fascinating dynamic: this ought to be a collaborative effort, with a number of gamers working collectively to uncover options – till it transforms into a person hunt for that remaining treasure.

“What we don’t need,” explains Davies, “is people, puzzle consultants, to form of squirrel themselves away and remedy these individually. We would like this to be one thing the place the neighborhood must lean on one another, the place they speculate on potential avenues of investigation to search out the options. And by getting the neighborhood working collectively, that’s what makes it such an fascinating dynamic shift, [until] individuals attain that time of, ‘Okay, that is truly a race with a cool prize on the finish of it.’”

And that remaining race can be fascinating to see – the second this turns into a real dash for the tip can be a check for gamers’ ethical compasses in addition to their brains. It’s actually the primary participant to unravel the thriller that earns the reward – not their crew. The ultimate golden cranium comes with 4 removable golden keys, permitting the victorious participant to reward their crew – however they don’t should. That’s very a lot by design:

“[This is] the final word check of the Pirate Code,” says Head of Model and Licensing, Adam Park. “As a result of essentially as a crew you’ll be able to go and win this prize however whoever proposed that voyage would be the precise winner. In order that particular person may at that time flip round and select to maintain the prize for themselves, or it’s been made in such a manner that it may be cut up with the keys – they’ll share their spoils however once more, it’s going to be one other fascinating check of how individuals truly behave. I do know what I’d do… you’d by no means hear from me once more.”

“That’s why I’d by no means crew up with you Adam,” laughs Davies.

All of this has led Uncommon to suppose in new methods about the way it delivers this Thriller. For the out-of-game puzzles, the mantra has been that there’s no puzzle too troublesome, so long as the clues have been supplied pretty, and that at the very least a number of gamers may crack the code and share it with the neighborhood. I received’t give something away, however be ready to search for clues in some very sudden locations.

Even the in-game Voyages are a brand new enterprise, although:

“We’re calling them Hunt Voyages,” says Davies. “Finally, you’re looking for one of many keys that can be utilized to unlock the chests which have been added to each Gold Hoarders tent. It’s a singular Voyage, completely different to what we’ve accomplished earlier than. It’s going to ship you all through the areas within the recreation, island-hopping, to do a map-wide scavenger hunt for these keys. However clearly, after 5 years, our super-engaged gamers know these areas just like the again of their hand. And what we truly need this to really feel like is, even in case you haven’t performed the sport as a lot, even in case you’ve just lately joined the sport, you’ve nonetheless acquired an awesome probability of successful these.”

The important thing to that’s the new character, H. Gamers have been fixing in-game riddles for years, however H speaks to gamers in a wholly completely different manner: “H will see issues via a barely completely different lens and describe issues in a barely completely different manner. You’ll be able to’t depend on how we normally describe these elements of the scenes, you want to interpret H’s lexicon and the way they speak about this stuff, attempt to perceive what H was seeing after they had been making these notes and following of their footsteps.”

In impact, H would be the recreation’s personal model of the Thriller’s inspiration, Levasseur, providing inscrutable supplies for gamers to puzzle over, focus on, and work collectively on – till they strike out on their very own to obtain the final word prize. However don’t dilly-dally; you may have lots lower than 300 years to determine this one out.

The Hoarder’s Hunt begins in Sea of Thieves at the moment. Join now to participate.