Sea of Thieves Season 1 estimated release time, and what's new in Season 1 explained
When to expect the first battle pass for Sea of Thieves.
Season 1 of Sea of Thieves is almost here, ushering in something new for Rare's open seas adventure - a seasonal update schedule.
With it comes another mainstay of service games, a battle pass - which is free for all players - with some additional non-exclusive Pirate Emporium items up for grabs as part of a Plunder Pass.
This page outlines the estimated Seas of Thieves Season 1 release time and some of what you have to look forward to in the new Season.
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Sea of Thieves Season 1 estimated release time GMT, CST, EDT and PDT explained
UPDATE (4pm UK time): Season 1 is now live! You can see what's been added to the game via the Sea of Thieves Season 1 Battle Pass and Sea of Thieves patch notes pages.
ORIGINAL STORY: The Sea of Thieves Season 1 release date is Thursday, January 28th, with the season likely going live sometime during daytime hours in the UK / GMT.
What do we know? Developer Rare has confirmed servers will go offline at the following times:
- UK: 10am (GMT / UK)
- Europe: 11am (CST / West Europe)
- East Coast US: 5am (EST / East Coast US)
- West Coast US: 2am on December 15th (PST / West Coast US)
From here, we can expect servers to go offline for a few hours, and the Season to launch when it returns.
As this is the most significant update to Sea of Thieves for some time, how long servers will be down for is unknown. However, with previous updates having downtimes of a couple of hours, we estimate the new Season and will be playing two to three hours after the above times. So for the UK, this would be around lunchtime.
To clarify, this is just an estimate on our part - and could be sooner or later depending on how things go. Additionally, expect an update to come alongside it, which you'll need to also have downloaded before you can begin playing.
The first season has arrived! Learn about all Season 1 Battle Pass rewards and everything else added in the Sea of Thieves patch notes. New to the game? Learn what to do in Sea of Thieves and take take part in the Maiden Voyage tutorial, which teaches you the essentials of sailing and ship battles. It's also useful for beginners to know how to survive fights with skeletons and the kraken. Elsewhere we have advice on how to get easy gold and doubloons, complete skeleton forts and The Shroudbreaker, take part in fishing in Sea of Thieves and Sea of Thieves island maps.
What's new in Season 1 of Sea of Thieves?
This update is a big one, with Sea of Thieves introducing its first formal season and battle pass. This means a number of major updates and additions, including:
- The start of a new season - set to last three months - which heralds the arrival of major new features and game updates.
- A battle pass with 100 tiers of rewards - including cosmetics such as emotes to in-game currencies and Ancient Coins.
- As well as this, there are Pirate Legend exclusive rewards, and the Plunder Pass, allowing you to earn additional Pirate Emporium items throughout the progression track.
- The introduction of Renown, an 'XP' system to level the battle pass, and Trials, which are composed of Deeds which test your abilities across various areas of the game
- A new Merchant Alliance Voyage, which sees you search for sunken treasure.
That's all announced by Rare so far - there could of course me more out there when it arrives. Best of luck in this first new season!