Sea of Thieves' first update of 2023 brings pet rocks, new limited-time adventure

Sea of Thieves is gearing up for a 2023 that'll see it celebrating five years of pirate adventure out on the waves, but before all that, it's hoisting anchor and setting sail with a mid-season update bringing pet rocks, a new limited-time adventure, and more.

Starting with that "and more", a major chunk of Sea of Thieves' new update - which arrives tomorrow, 19th January - is dedicated to improving the matchmaking system introduced as part of the game's new on-demand PvP functionality at the end of last year.

Eye-wateringly long wait times have been a major complaint since the feature's arrival in Season 8, and Rare is looking to remedy the issue by, firstly, allowing same-faction battles when matchmaking is taking to long. It's also introducing what it calls "cross-stamp migration" to make it easier for players to be paired. Some additional information on the changes can be found in a dev blog from December.

Read more