Hello, you beautiful buccaneers – and Happy Talk Like A Pirate Day! Given this most special of occasions, we thought it’d be piratically pertinent to share with you the details of our next Community Weekend. Previously Community Days, these have now doubled in length to make them twice as nice for everyone participating, thanks to the popularity of the bumper event we ran to celebrate our fifth anniversary.
Now, let’s get into the delightful details of what awaits all keen corsairs from September 30th to October 2nd – it’s set to be a jam-packed event!
Living the Stream
Item one on the agenda is how to increase the Community Emissary Grade, which takes on a brand new form for this Season’s Community Weekend. Whereas players could previously contribute to boosting the Grade by using the #SeaOfThievesCommunityDay tag on Twitter, this time the multiplier – and more – will be powered by how much time players spend watching the Sea of Thieves category on Twitch! That’s right: all you need to do to help raise the Grade is tune in to any of your favourite content creators within the Sea of Thieves category between 10am UTC on Saturday, September 30th and 10am UTC on Monday, October 2nd.
As the Community Emissary Grade rises, so will the multiplier on gold, reputation, Renown and Allegiance for all players, with the top Grade offering two-and-a-half times the reward for your work! For those of you still yet to hit level 100 Renown in Season Nine, this will be your chance to do it and make a pretty penny at the same time. And if you’re a few levels off scoring your first Hourglass-related Curse, the same applies – this weekend is the perfect opportunity to maximise your progress and earn some serious stonks.
Talking of streams, the Rare crew will be setting sail on the Saturday morning, live from the on-site tavern! Tankards will be raised, chaos will ensue, pirates will plunder and a gay old time will be had. Join the gang from 10am UTC on September 30th to kick off the event with a healthy dose of shenanigans. Every minute you spend watching will also work towards raising that Community Emissary Grade, and may even earn you some Twitch Drops at the same time. That’s very efficient viewing by any standard.
Top of the Drops
Yes, tuning in to your favourite Sea of Thieves content creators (and of course us, on the Saturday morning) will also count towards unlocking a sweet suite of Drops for your own use! The Eastern Winds Ruby Sturdy Boots, Gilded Phoenix Cutlass, Eastern Winds Ruby Bejewelled Gloves and Gilded Phoenix Eye of Reach will all become available to claim as the weekend progresses, and all you need to do once each prize is up for grabs is watch any Twitch streamer in the Sea of Thieves category (not just Partners on this occasion) for a minimum of one hour per item.
Find out more about how Twitch Drops work on our dedicated page – where you can also make sure your Sea of Thieves and Twitch accounts are linked ahead of time so that you’re eligible for Drops!
We’ve also set a sneaky extra goal, which will bag you a bonus Drop should you collectively rise to the challenge. If you all manage to get Sea of Thieves into the top 10 categories (by highest number of viewers) on Twitch at any point during the weekend, a special Twitch Drop will be unlocked: the Obsidian Captain’s Rugs, equippable to any Captained ship! The Obsidian Ship’s Crest will also be unlocked for participating players if we hit that stretch goal, but awarded at a later date. So do your utmost during the event to unlock these super-swish items, not forgetting to make sure your accounts are linked before you get started!
Presenting: Pop-Up Plunder
It’s not just the increased rewards and more Twitch Drops you stand to benefit from as you race through the different Community Emissary Grades. Every time the community collectively levels up, we’ll introduce a new piece of Pop-Up Plunder to every Sea of Thieves server. But what is Pop-Up Plunder, we hear you cry? Well, we can answer that right now: it’s a way for us to sneak terrific treasures into the world on the fly. And if you think that sounds cool, it’s because it is.
Every time Pop-Up Plunder becomes available, players will receive a notification in-game that fresh loot is live and that a clue regarding the whereabouts of the high-value haul has been released somewhere on Sea of Thieves’ official social media channels. There will only be one plunderous prize per server, and each will only be discoverable for an hour before it disappears – so you’ll have to be swift on social and on the seas to secure it.
Of course, there may be a certain amount of strife involved in retrieving these special stashes of loot. Once the Pop-Up Plunder has been dug up, a cheeky little map marker will appear for everyone else on the same server, just so they know the precious prize hasn’t been handed in yet and they can still steal it. If you’re thinking “well, that sounds dastardly” – you’re right. We designed it like that, because we are dastardly. You’re welcome.
But these spoils are worth fighting for: amongst the assortment of items that will be buried at random are packed Collector’s Chests, Chests of Legends, suites of Siren Gems and even Chests of Fortune, so this is a spicy game of loot roulette that stands to earn you scores of cold, hard gold.
Even after the community have hit Grade Five, we’ll continue to periodically drop Pop-Up Plunder into the world until the end of the event. The majority of this loot will be random, with the only guaranteed Pop-Up Plunder item being Grade Five’s first treasure, which you’ll all recognise as an item particularly rare and Wondrous. Of course, these ultra-rare treasures can only be handed in at certain spots, so you may have to run a daunting oceanic gauntlet to cash in your prize…
Our Onus Is on Bonuses
This Community Weekend won’t just be about precarious pillaging of Pop-Up Plunder – there’s plenty on offer for those who just want to enjoy the good vibes and score some free stuff. As is customary, the glorious Season Nine Community Weekend flag, this time in regal tones of purple and gold, will magic its way into the Flag Box of anyone logging in over the event period.
There’s also very good news if you’re a fan of fondling foliage, as the Touch Grass Emote will be free to anyone logging in too! While we don’t actually want you to touch any grass during the event – ideally, we want you playing and watching Sea of Thieves – we figured it’d come in handy for those moments of heightened emotion where you feel like it could be refreshing to remind yourself of your roots.
And where better to show off your new emote than in front of a stunning Community Weekend-themed picture wall? Following its popularity on our Fifth Anniversary Community Weekend, we’re bringing picture walls back to the Sea of Thieves – but this time at every Outpost, so you won’t need to trek to Port Merrick to snap your perfect selfie. They’ll also boast a flag that represents the Community Emissary Grade at any given time, so you’ll know how at a glance how Grade progression is going. We’ve even managed to squeeze in a functional grog barrel at the scene, so pirates won’t have to travel far for a celebratory beverage. Cheers to that!
If you want to literally fly the Season Nine Community Weekend flag at home, you’re in luck – a time-limited flag and T-shirt will be heading to the Rare merchandise store for the duration of Community Weekend. And if you’re looking for an excuse to pick up additional pirate goodies at a bargain price, the discount code SOTCOMMUNITYWEEKEND will knock 30% off the cost of most Sea of Thieves swag in that very same store, so it’s worth browsing the digital aisles now to see if there are any cute items you’d like to earmark for the occasion.
Hats Amore
Even though Twitter will no longer power our Community Emissary Grade, we’ll still have a big focus on the #SeaOfThievesCommunityWeekend hashtag for fun stories and stunning screenshots, artwork and gameplay clips – so please do spend some time sharing good vibes on all your usual social media profiles. Our Community team will be captaining the channels all throughout the weekend, ready to share our favourite posts!
These events have always served as a super opportunity to spotlight some of our community MVPs, celebrating amazing players, artists, creators and general good eggs. So if you think either you or one of your crewmates deserves fame and a particularly fetching hat, look no further as our #BeMorePirate drive returns for Season Nine Community Weekend.
We’ll be scouring channels and the #BeMorePirate tag for amazing Sea of Thieves stories and creations, from now until the end of the event. Worthy winners will be awarded the Hat of Unfeasibly Glorious Fame, so get your submissions in soon to see if your antics warrant your pirate’s bonce being crowned with such a special bonnet.
Glove in the First Degree
Fashion-focused freebooters, you’re also in luck – it’s time to return to the catwalk for a bonus round of #StyleOfThieves! With just one category to dress for this time, we’re calling your whole crew into the spotlight for the theme of Crew Couture. Show off your cohesive looks or represent your roles on the ship with a screenshot, and you and up to three crewmates could each win a set of Fashionista’s Finery Gloves!
Submissions will open at 10am UTC on October 1st and run for just 24 hours, with the four winning crews being revealed by October 6th. To enter, just post your screenshot during the submission window using #StyleOfThieves and the theme title on X/Twitter, Instagram or our official Discord server via the Pirate Fashion channel, or reply to the #StyleOfThieves post on Facebook.
Herd Community
That’s all you need to know! But the most important thing to do in preparation for Season Nine Community Day is to contact your crew – or, if you’re a lone wolf, mark some time in your diary for a serious bit of solo Sloopin’. Check your Reputation tabs, your Commendations and our Outpost stock to see what sort of targets you can set your sights on, and plot a course for adventure alongside all our other wonderful pirates in this latest celebration of Sea of Thieves’ super community! We can’t wait to see you on the seas.