Sea Of Thieves Roll Back Crouching Mechanic, Resolves Grapple Gun Issues & Adds More Gameplay Improvements

Pirates across the Sea of Thieves had their spooky shenanigans slightly interrupted when servers were brought down unexpectedly by the game's developer, Rare. While the developer mentioned that an "essential maintenance" period was happening across their social media channels, it wasn't long until servers were brought back online with accompanying patch notes.

The recent hotfix saw the developer reinstate some of its stealth gameplay mechanics previously disabled at the start of Season 14: Pirates of Mischief. Additionally, this patch addressed issues pirates experienced with a specific weapon, resolved some bugs related to the new season content, and added some gameplay imporvements and optimizations, so grab a Grog, and let's dive in!

The latest hotfix for Sea of Thieves long last reinstated the Crouching mechanic, which had been disabled to "protect players from high-impact issues and for the team to work on improving the quality bar" ahead of Season 14's release. With Crouching finally available for pirates to sneak around and take out enemy pirates while onboard their ships, Rare also added a few adjustments to the mechanic that should make movement more seamless.

The spotlighted adjustments and improvements made to the mechanic include when they've tried to crouch after being fired from cannons, before jumping into cannons and falling from great heights. There were also some adjustments and optimizations for the Grapple Gun, a weapon added to Sea of Thieves for Season 14, which many pirates experienced issues with at the season's launch.

The fixes for the Grapple Gun include instances when pirates tried to latch onto an item when climbing into a cannon, which the item is now "placed back on the ground," but this doesn't apply to pirates who are fired from the cannon if they can grab it in time. Additionally, pirates who have tried to use the Grapple Gun to grab other pirates will note that doing this will no longer have them "flung across the sea."

Likewise, Rare improved the game's "Performance and Stability," which they hope will "reduce scenarios where players unexpectedly exit the game or become disconnected from their session." Finally, the developer outlined a few "Known Issues" identified through playtest or player feedback, which should be addressed in a future hotfix or patch update for Sea of Thieves.