Hunt ghosts to become ghosts in Sea Of Thieves' Fate Of The Damned update

It's all gotten rather scary on the Sea Of Thieves. Well, scarier than normal for a game already bursting with skeletons. This year's Fate Of The Damned event sets sail today, sending you scallywags off to solve the mystery of the missing Bilge Rat crews, with plenty of delightfully spooky goodies to grab should you succeed.

There'll be ghosts and ghouls aplenty standing in the way of your quest, of course. And skeletons. Dozens and dozens of skeletons.

A foul mist has engulfed the ocean, lit pumpkins litter the isles, and undead fiends return to haunt Rare's sailor sandbox. Speaking to NPC Larianna in any of the game's taverns will send you in search of lost crews, with bags of suitably spooky loot up for grabs. Additionally, you'll end up snagging Ritual Skulls, opening up island assaults on the Fort of the Damned for even better rewards.

Those voyages aren't the only trips you can take during the event. Each week brings new challenges, setting you against ghastly foes across the game's ocean. Completing these challenges will help you unlock Soulflame Weapons, while besting special Slayer of Fate challenges will net you a particularly haunted lantern. Pirate Legends who best all of the event challenges will be given spectral Soulflame costumes for themselves and their crew, turning you all into incorporeal scallywags.

Outside of skelly-hunting, the shops have been updated with a catalogue of haunted cosmetics to slap across ships and sailors. If you're willing to part with some real cash, there are some awful cute skeletal critters to pick up.

Finally, the update adds a few nifty features, primarily the new option to toggle 'auto move' to certain keys, which functions as you may expect while navigating but also works with certain ship interactions like raising the capstan. Mysterious Notes may now appear next to characters when they wake up on login, directing players towards the newest stuff to check out, while a new in-game event tracker helps track your various errands across the ocean. A full lineup of features, fixes and balance changes is in the 2.0.19 patch notes.

20 years ago, Nat played Jet Set Radio Future for the first time, and she's not stopped thinking about games since. Joining PC Gamer in 2020, she comes from three years of freelance reporting at Rock Paper Shotgun, Waypoint, VG247 and more. Embedded in the European indie scene and a part-time game developer herself, Nat is always looking for a new curiosity to scream about—whether it's the next best indie darling, or simply someone modding a Scotmid into Black Mesa. She also unofficially appears in Apex Legends under the pseudonym Horizon.