So, Sea of Thieves is getting a cash shop with the release of the Smuggler’s Fortune update on September 11th. Before you get possibly wound up about this information, allow executive producer Joe Neate to explain just what this cash shop is, what it offers, and (more importantly) what it will not offer in this behind-the-scenes video.
The Pirate Emporium, as the shop will be called, will not be selling lootboxes or power. What it will be selling is unique emotes that grant players the opportunity to customize their emote wheel; Heritage Ship Cosmetics, which are ship cosmetics that will hearken back to Rare’s game development past, the first of which is a reference to Banjo-Kazooie; and pets, or more specifically parrots and monkeys. These will be the Emporium’s launch offerings, with new ones scheduled to arrive on a rotating monthly basis.
Buying these goodies requires a special currency known as Ancient Coins. These can be either bought directly or earned by slaying an Ancient Skeleton, a rare enemy that can spawn while you’re out in the world. Players will have a limited time to take out this skeleton and snap up its loot before it burrows into the ground; think the Treasure Goblins from Diablo III in principle.
Speaking of pet monkeys, the Sea of Thieves developers had a preview stream of the Pirate Emporium yesterday, which had plenty of detailed looks at what’s coming in the store and also featured a live monkey… who blew chunks on one of the developers. Both the preview livestream and the summary of what’s in the Emporium are embedded below, though the livestream is possibly NSFW due to monkey barf (that’s not a sentence I thought I’d ever type…).
