Fancy playing Sea of Thieves without the PvP? This pirate-themed survival game just left early access with a big update and a launch discount

Viewed from first person, the players stands at the helm of a pirate sloop as it sails through the ocean in Salt 2: Shores of Gold

(Image credit: Lavaboots Studios)

Released just as the survival craze was really kicking into high gear, Salt was a quietly enjoyable survival game about sailing through a virtual archipelago in your own personal pirate ship. It didn't break through in the same way as Subnautica and Raft did, perhaps because it was a little rough around the edges—particularly visually.

The sequel, Salt 2: Shores of Gold, made some big improvements in that regard, while also enhancing the series' PvE focus and adding an infinite, procedurally generated world to explore. After spending the last three years in early access—during which Salt 2 gained a main quest, cooperative multiplayer, skill trees and underwater exploration among other things—it has now left alpha development, blasting a broadside of new features into Salt 2's hull to round out the core experience.

Primarily, the launch update fleshes out the endgame experience for Salt 2. It adds a new NPC into the world who appears once players reach level 40, providing objectives for hunting down rare items players can exchange for legendary recipes. The update also introduces challenging world bosses for you to test your mettle against, as well as an endgame merchant who sells ship customisation items to let you trick out your vessel.

Salt 2: Shores of Gold Gameplay Trailer (2025) - YouTube

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Elsewhere, the update plugs a few leaks and sews up several tears in Salt 2's sails. It ensures the game pauses properly while in certain menus, enables jumping while swimming (which seems like adding a bug rather than removing one, but maybe real pirates could do that), makes looting more efficient, and much more.

While leaving early access represents a major landmark for developer Lavaboots Studios, it's by no means the end of development (yet another nail in the coffin for the concept of games being finished). The studio says that following release, "we will continue expanding on the content in the game as usual. This will include adding more things to discover, new quests, new enemy types, new points of interests, more island types, new items, and other improvements." Lavaboots will also take community feedback into account regarding any potential future updates.

To celebrate Salt 2's departure from early access, Lavaboots Studios has made it available at a 20% discount for most of the month, bringing the price down to $16 (£12.39). The discount ends on November 26.

Rick has been fascinated by PC gaming since he was seven years old, when he used to sneak into his dad's home office for covert sessions of Doom. He grew up on a diet of similarly unsuitable games, with favourites including Quake, Thief, Half-Life and Deus Ex. Between 2013 and 2022, Rick was games editor of Custom PC magazine and associated website bit-tech.net. But he's always kept one foot in freelance games journalism, writing for publications like Edge, Eurogamer, the Guardian and, naturally, PC Gamer. While he'll play anything that can be controlled with a keyboard and mouse, he has a particular passion for first-person shooters and immersive sims.

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