In Ashen Wilds, Sea of Thieves players will go up against Captain Flameheart’s skeletal captains as he has apparently amassed the Tomes, Jewels, and other ritual ingredients needed to raise his most loyal followers. These followers are known as the Ashen Lords and are rather fiery foes as they can exhale fire, and hurl burning rocks. An Ashen Lord can also burst into flames when using its gifts, so don’t get too close. They can also summon clouds of ash that can obscure your vision. The Order of Souls has the names of at least four of the Ashen Lords: Captain Grimm, Red Ruth, Old Horatio, and Warden Chi. These Skeleton Captains have pledged themselves to Flameheart and had the Ashen Curse bestowed upon them. If you happen to acquire the skull of one of these fellas, The Order of Souls will pay you well. An Ashen Lords Skull is not only a trophy for the Order of Souls, but it can also be used as a deadly weapon as it will still spit out flames. Ashen Jewels inside these skulls contain the power of the curse and will dim as you use their power. If you drain them, they will be of no use to the Oder of Souls so use that power against your enemies wisely. You can also take one from a ship that is currently carrying one. Because they are an emergent threat, you could encounter one during any visit to an island, but if you wish to hunt one down, look at the skies and you might see an Ahsen Winds Cloud which indicates their presence. Alongside the new content comes new items in the Pirate Emporium. These new items include the rather cute Ashen Curse Pets Collection which features a firey cat, monkey, and parrot. You can find the patch notes included with the update below, which notes some fixes, gameplay improvements, and additional accessibility options.

Sea of Thieves Ashen Winds - patch notes

Download size 

Xbox One: 6.17 GB Xbox One X: 6.5 GB Windows 10: 6.5 GB Steam: 4.47 GB

All melee and ranged weapons are now prevented from dealing damage through the solid surfaces of the ship. This means players can duck behind the mast for cover during a ranged weapon face-off, or sink below deck to use the environment and some quick footwork to gain an advantage in sword combat. Shots from ranged weapons can still pass through ship railings, stairs, and decking grates, providing tactical opportunities to engage rival players on different levels of the ship.

Inactive Ships in The Arena

If a rival crew leaves an active contest, their ship now begins to sink instantly, preventing any further silver gain from damaging it.

World Event Encounters

The frequency of Ashen Lord encounters is increased for the duration of the Ashen Winds update.

Skeleton Ship Restocking

Defeating a Skeleton Ship will now reward players with a storage crate containing food, wood, and cannonballs.

Skeleton Fort Waves

New waves of skeletons appear much more quickly after the horn is sounded.

Swapping Between Emotes

Players now retain access to the Emote Radial while performing an emote, allowing them to switch to another emote easily.

Mute Voice Chat Keybind

Players are now able to set a keybind for the ‘Mute All Other Crews’ option, allowing faster access to muting others when needed.

Barrel Inventory Mouse Navigation

Opening a barrel inventory will reset the mouse cursor to the center of the screen. This setting is now configurable within the Accessibility Settings under ‘Recenter Mouse in Menus’.

Sea of Thieves now features Korean and Polish localization across the entire game.

‘My Crew’ Visibility

The in-game crew management menu will now show players that take up a slot in a crew even if they are not currently in-game. This should better visualize players who are still in the process of joining a game or lost their connection but have a reserved slot. The option to invite friends will now be disabled if the crew is full.

Emissary Meter

The Emissary meter in the corner of the screen display now has a revised circular design.

Emissary Wallet

When representing as an Emissary and cashing in rewards, this shows the base value along with the bonus value earned from the Emissary multiplier.

Settings Screens

Updates have been made to Gameplay and Accessibility Settings screen layouts to improve navigation.

The ability to play with a single analog stick can now be enabled in the Accessibility Settings menu. This assigns movement and turning to one analog stick chosen by the player, as well as enabling auto-center for the camera, auto-float, and fixed position interaction points.

Auto-center Camera

While the auto-center camera is enabled by default when using single-stick controls, this feature is available separately from Accessibility Settings. Options are provided to configure the delay before centering, along with the camera movement speed.

Auto-Float Accessibility

Auto-float is enabled by default when using single-stick control and can also be toggled on separately. When enabled, players will always float automatically to the water’s surface. Note that this does prevent swimming down through water.

Accessibility Settings Reset

The Accessibility Settings menu now has a reset option to change all accessibility options back to their default values.

‘Let Games Read to Me’ Improvements

When the ‘Let Games Read to Me’ option is enabled, there are now enhanced narration instructions while navigating menus and settings. Status messages in menus such as ‘Reporting for Duty’ and ‘Searching the Seas’ along with error message pop-ups are now narrated to improve accessibility. Each radial menu has also received enhanced narration and will identify the current selection along with the number of options on the radial menu.

Speech-To-Text Override

Within the Accessibility Settings menu, players can now override the Xbox platform setting and enable speech-to-text.

Default Settings for New Players

New players entering Sea of Thieves will now find that the ‘Text Chat in Menus’ setting is enabled by default, ensuring that players who require speech-to-text for their experience will now receive messages while navigating in-game menus. Existing players will not have their settings changed.

When a player is in the water and a mermaid has appeared, the mermaid will now remain until the player’s ship reaches a much closer proximity. Ashen Key Masters will now emergently spawn on islands. Killing a player shortly after they are revived and then reviving them again will no longer cause animation issues. The Ghost Lantern now casts a green light over the surrounding area. Obstructions to visibility while using the Blighted Cannons have been removed. Emissary Grade meter UI now shows for players who join a crew of active Emissaries. Fixed progress tracking for Curse of the Foul Grog and Curse of the Dancing Demon Commendations. Fixed progress tracking for Commendations tied to handing in common and uncommon Athena’s Treasures. The ‘Mute All Other Crews’ option will no longer mute crewmates on Windows 10. Players will no longer lose the ability to communicate when using in-game voice chat. Crew slots occupied by players who exit to desktop on Windows 10 will no longer stay active.

Combat and Hit Registration

Improved chain shot hit registration on ship masts. Improved projectile and melee hit registration across all areas of the Sloop. Improved hit registration when players are engaged in melee combat while swimming on the surface and underwater. Gunpowder Kegs being carried by rival players while they climb a ladder can be blown up. Improved hit registration when attacking rival players who are standing on a ship’s yardarm. The Rowboat now blocks any melee attacks from below. Blunderbombs and firebombs can be used at any depth during underwater combat. The ship’s wheel now only blocks shots fired at its central wooden structure. The rear walls of the Sloop around the hatches now block projectiles fired through the hull.

Radial Menus

Quick Select will now correctly equip the previous item held when wielding a weapon or holding nothing. Items equipped via hotkey will be remembered when next using Quick Select. There is now a contextual Non-Verbal Radial when climbing up the ladder to the crow’s nest. Fixed on-screen message delay when Quick Selecting a non-verbal communication phrase from the radial. When reconfiguring the Non-Verbal Radial to not use the A Button or the Space Bar, players are now able to jump. The Non-Verbal Radial will now display the correct phrases when holding a pet. The radial manager keybinding names are now consistent with the setting names.

Ghost Ships

Treasure dropped by a sunken Ghost Ship and the phantoms that circle it will persist if a player migrates to a new server. The bounty target location in an active Ghost Ship Voyage will refresh if the player migrates to a new server during a Ghost Ship encounter. Flameheart’s taunts to players colliding with Ghost Ships will only play for the crew whose ship is being damaged.

The Arena

The Arena vote tally layout has been changed to be more visible. After muting a player in a rival crew in The Arena, they now stay muted even after other players join their crew.

Visual and Audio

Fixed instances of instruments playing without audio when switching between instruments or shanties. Scraping a boat against a surface should no longer cause the grinding audio effect to persist after sailing away. Placing ghostly loot on a Rowboat docked to a ship will no longer cause the ghostly effect to stutter when the ship is moving. Players swimming underwater during Tall Tales and Ghost Ship encounters will be able to hear Flameheart’s voice more clearly when he speaks. Previously set volume settings now persist when returning to the front end after leaving the game. Collision has been improved on walls alongside the wooden walkway in the Pirate Legend Hideout. Updated Sea of Thieves boot-up image. References to ‘Sail Hoist’ on sail interaction points and the Pirate Chat Radial have been changed to ‘Sail Length’. Ghosts Ships now consistently trigger an implosion effect when destroyed. Fixed brightness of light reflected off a spyglass when looking at loot and other players at night. Opening crates now plays a sound. The camp on Cannon Cove is no longer illuminated at night.

Accessibility

The ‘Game Transcription Override’ setting now persists across sessions. Improved text visibility for longer reward item names in the contextual Non-Verbal Radial. When using ‘Let Games Read to Me’ upon returning to the front end after playing, the screen is now narrated. When using ‘Let Games Read to Me’, the narrator will no longer loop in the ‘Choose your Experience’ screen before the Maiden Voyage, or if a player backs out from Crew Setup. When using ‘Let Games Read to Me’, changing the keybindings in the Settings menu will now be narrated correctly.

Performance and Stability

Steam – pressing Alt+Tab in-game no longer causes long pauses when returning to the game. Steam – performance has been improved around Outposts and world event encounters for lower-spec machines. Performance optimizations implemented to reduce texture loading issues on Devil’s Thirst for lower-spec machines. Improved server stability when players are using Quick Select to return to their last used equipment. Improved game stability when returning to a ship where a player is simultaneously being revived. Players experiencing a corrupt installation on UWP or Steam will now be notified by a pop-up when attempting to launch the game.

We are currently tracking a number of player-impacting issues which can occur following a server migration. These include crews migrating near Outposts finding themselves moved to a location where another ship is already present, and issues with ship interaction points following a migration.

Increased Latency and Server Correction

In cases of high server density, some servers can exhibit performance hits leading to increased latency. This may result in lag spikes during gameplay, rubberbanding, and server correction.

Ranged and Melee Weapon Hit Detection

In areas of intense action, players may find themselves firing shots or landing strikes that do not cause damage to their targets. While improvements continue to be delivered during our content updates, this continues to be a key priority for the team.

Stuck UI Menus

When interacting with a barrel and moving quickly through its inventory, players may find that the barrel’s state is not updated as items are removed. Players can also experience the Game Options becoming stuck on-screen when exiting a barrel in this state.