Roll up, roll up! As part of our week of Legendary fun, we’re pulling back the curtain and giving you all a tantalising look at Legend of the Veil, a brand new Voyage exclusive to Pirate Legends that’s coming to Sea of Thieves very soon. But don’t worry, while today’s video follows the same format as our other Seasonal Deep Dives, it doesn’t reveal everything – we don’t want to spoil all the surprises before it launches later this Season.
As the video features a multi-disciplinary group of Rare staff members discussing their work on Legend of the Veil, for the purposes of this article we tracked a couple of them down afterwards to get some more thoughts and feelings on what promises to be an epic three-stage Voyage. But first, let’s watch!
As this Voyage sees players finally interacting with the Ancients – the enigmatic civilisation who left a lasting mark on the Sea of Thieves – their theme had to be suitably grand, but still with an air of mystery. As we heard from in-house Musician Chloe Kwok, it took some revisions to get the theme of the Ancients just right:
“Making the new music for this Voyage was super fun, as we were able to conjure up a new theme for the Ancients which appears in all the new banners, cutscenes and approach music. It was a challenge to try and get the theme to sound ‘Ancient-y’. But also good. But also ambiguous. Yet it had to have its own unique sound – so that was also a challenge. However, we got there in the end, using pipes and some choral underlay to bring the Ancients’ theme to life!
“We’ve also added another music layer onto the Soulflame Captain battle music, so it now contains the Sea of Thieves theme as you reach the climax of the battle, which hopefully gets your heart pumping.”
One key feature of this Voyage is its dramatic finale where you have to destroy ghostly emplacements during a supernatural storm, in the final fight against an imposing Ghost Garrison. As you fire at these structures with your ship’s cannons, masonry will crumble and fall. This environmental destruction required multiple teams working in tandem, says Lead Environment Artist Andrew Finch, with the final result being a thrilling new gameplay experience:
“I’m really proud of how satisfying the destruction of the environment is. As Environment Artists, we always want to create exciting, dynamic spaces. We developed this tech with one of the Tall Tales from Sea of Thieves: A Pirate’s Life, so we were able to build on that and push it even further.
“Having the world react to what the player does adds so much life to the scene. It was a huge cross-disciplinary effort to get that ‘wow’ factor of the Ghost Garrison exploding and crumbling away, mixed in with the atmosphere, lighting and weather effects. It makes for a visual treat for everyone.”
With new Pirate Legend content being something that’s often requested by the community, Chloe hopes that the Legend of the Veil Voyage delivers what players want:
“I hope the players do enjoy the Voyage, as it’s been widely asked for a very long time and this update shows that we are listening! Also, watch out for the final sea battle because the environment looks absolutely epic!”
For Andrew, it’s the variety of new environments that he hopes players enjoy. From haunted islands to sunken shipwrecks, Legend of the Veil aims to provide players with some fresh surroundings to explore on their nautical adventures:
“The shipwrecks provide a very dramatic backdrop – huge Galleons connected with intertwining debris; they look so impressive. Navigating these spaces, solving clues while dodging sharks and finding air vents to breathe will lead to fast-paced exciting gameplay that I’m sure players are going to love.”
The Legend of the Veil Voyage forms one prong of this year’s three-pronged plan to expand Sea of Thieves’ evolving world with engaging narrative content. For those intrigued to find out more about Adventures and Mysteries, the other two prongs in our trident of excitement, you can find out more in the most recent episode of the official SoT Podcast! If that doesn’t entice you enough, there’s an electrifying discussion about wooden bin stores that simply can’t be missed.
Our Legends Week frolics continue apace, culminating with in-game celebrations this weekend such as Gold & Glory multipliers, a login gift for Legends and free Athena’s Fortune Fireworks for all players! You can also take a look at this week’s Legendary stats article for a shiny infographic and in-depth statistical breakdown of what makes a Pirate Legend, and check in on the Sea of Thieves Community Hub and News pages this weekend for even more content showcasing some of the bold followers of Athena’s Fortune. Enjoy!