Sea of Thieves: The Hungering Deep teases a new terror from the blackest depths

The Hungering Deep, the first content update for the multiplayer pirate adventure Sea of Thieves, is now live. The free update adds new in-game features and cosmetics, a "monstrous peril" from the darkest depths, and the game's first time-limited adventure that tells the tale of "Merry" Merrick, a boozed-up two-peg-legger who could maybe use a little help dealing with a bit of a white whale-type situation.

Rare dropped a developer update video to coincide with the release of The Hungering Deep, but like the Sea of Thieves website itself it doesn't say too much about what's actually in store.

"Hopefully we should start seeing some of the adventures and people discovering what might be in there," executive producer Joe Neate says in the video. "We're trying something a little bit different with our time-limited campaign, and with having to discover this AI threat that we've put into the world. We're trying to encourage players to kind of come together to uncover and take down this AI threat with the new features that we've put in there."

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The secrecy is fun, but the image shared on the Xbox Twitter feed suggests that the "AI threat," as Neate so laconically put it (and which had been previously teased as a giant sea beast of some sort), is a great white shark that's bigger than your average Spanish galleon. That is not a good thing to find yourself floating in front of.

On the upside, the update will also give players the chance to acquire special campaign items, including a new figurehead and the Hungering Tattoo set. Like the Hungering Deep campaign itself, some of these new goodies will only be available for a limited time, while others (the new Shark Hunter livery set, for instance) will be permanent.

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.