The Haunted Shores update for Sea of Thieves has arrived, and it’s a big one in terms of content, bringing ghost ships, new shanties, and more cosmetics. It also introduces a handy accessibility feature.
Throughout Sea of Thieves, players are able to communicate through voice communications or text communications. There’s also a way to use a radial wheel to shout out preset commands or funny quips. With the new Haunted Shores update, the release dates detail how this non-verbal communication feature has been improved.
The 2.0.16 update explains, “We want to support all our players in communicating whether they have voice chat or not.” Originally, the game found players opening a radial wheel to choose a set of presets which would appear as text chat. There were also other presets tucked away behind specific items, for example, holding a clock would allow you to say, “It’s time to go!” — or something to that extent, I can’t remember.
This radial wheel has now been updated to include categories. These sub-radials can be accessed through a button in a similar way to how a player accesses throwables. The example given in the post uses Strategy, which includes a range of options dedicated to phrases related to strategic actions.
There’s also an Alerts page on the wheel which allows players to quickly call out enemies or other specific commands. These alerts are always available on the radial wheel for quick access. The post clarifies, “This does mean that context-sensitive options (such as those about items you’re holding) are now accessed via a sub-radial, but we feel that this is the right change to allow you to alert your crew quickly.”
Prior to Sea of Thieves’ Haunted Shores update players had to stop moving in order to activate the radial wheel with the D-Pad. That has now been changed, allowing players to now hit the RB button to open it instead. Of course, this change comes with changes to some remapping to compensate, “Previously, Quests were accessed using RB on controller and E on keyboard. These are now accessible as a sub-radial option within the Equipment Radial (accessed using on LB on controller or Q on keyboard).”
There’s also the new option to activate Quick Select. This simple tap of a button will now allow players to switch to the previously equipped item without having to open the radial wheel and re-select it from the list. There’s also improvements to the text sizes for all Crew Join and Leave toast notifications. Basically, Rare made the text bigger.
Also detailed through the release notes is an improvement to Sea of Thieves’ Let Games Read to Me which when enabled will now read extra narration when going through menus and options as well as what buttons to press. The tutorial prompts during the Maiden Voyage are also fully narrated, and when voice chat is activated a narrated alert will inform players it’s active.
Sea of Thieves is available on PC and Xbox One.
