Hands up, when was the last time you heard us mention the Creator Crew? No, the headline or social post you read before clicking through to this article doesn’t count. That’s right, it’s been a while…
This isn’t to say that the Creator Crew hasn’t served an important purpose over the years. Its simple challenges have presented a suitable starting point for streaming swabbies looking to share their high seas shenanigans. However, as we fix one eye on all the ways our community are creative in the name of Sea of Thieves, and then swivel the other to examine how we support those efforts on our social channels and right here on the website, we felt (alongside some eye strain) that the idea of the Creator Crew could be expanded to encompass a lot more than just new streamers.
Now, this isn’t some grand shake-up, at least not yet. Those in-game streaming challenges will remain exactly as they are, and we’re not adding any new in-game Commendations today (not saying we ever will either, just leaving our options open). What we are doing is making the Creator Crew a more comprehensive home for all the creative efforts we encourage the Sea of Thieves community to undertake, in-game and out, and properly detailing the rewards on offer for pirates who do so.
From #SoTShot and #BeMorePirate, to the Compass of Chaos, #StyleOfThieves and anything else we decide to do in the future, our hope is that bringing all these efforts under the banner of the Creator Crew will help enforce that players who are artful or imaginative with or around Sea of Thieves are part of a much wider community of Sea of Thieves creatives, while also demystifying some of our community contests and their rewards in the process.
That doesn’t mean we aren’t using this as an opportunity to make some tweaks and additions, mind! Those with questionable article etiquette, or pirates who’ve read a summary of what we’re up to on social media, may have already clocked that we’ve got some changes coming to our long-standing community contests, and we really don’t want you to spend any longer than necessary reading our waffle, so the next couple of headings will just get to telling you exactly what’s happening around our hashtag contests that we’re bringing under the Creator Crew umbrella.
#SoTShot is our regular screenshot contest that asks pirates to snap in-game scenes that fit a selected theme we post on participating channels (currently that’s Instagram, Bluesky and Twitter/X). From capturing certain world regions to reimagining famous movie scenes, this contest has run over 100 often alliterative asks since its launch in 2020. These contests have led to almost 2500 pirates earning the privilege to fly the Golden Hour Sails, while a pinch over 100 scoundrels have been named Visionary Artists of the Seas for involving themselves in ten or more winning entries.
Following the introduction of Custom Seas, which features a dedicated Free Camera and a range of image-enhancing features, we decided that now was a good time to scrutinise the rewards on offer, and provide some fresh reasons for those Visionary Artists to get reacquainted with their screenshot buttons.
#SoTShot has previously offered the Golden Hour Sails and a series of Artist of the Seas Titles for working up to ten wins, with the prizes given at one, two, three, five, seven and ten specifically. Our goal is to simplify this track, and offer a prize for every win along the path to make that trek more rewarding and predictable.
To simplify this process, the existing rewards will have their criteria reduced, and some new cosmetics will be added beyond them. The theme at the time of writing (Small Subjects) will award prizes based on the old system, as it went live before this announcement, but from the theme starting on August 31st the new rewards for a player being involved in-game and making a direct contribution to the composition of a winning #SoTShot image will be as follows:
One Win: Golden Hour Sails
Two Wins: Noteworthy Artist of the Seas Title
Three Wins: Accomplished Artist of the Seas Title
Four Wins: Renowned Artist of the Seas Title
Five Wins: Inspiring Artist of the Seas Title
Six Wins: Visionary Artist of the Seas Title
Seven Wins: Pirate Paparazzo Flag
Eight Wins: Golden Hour Hull
Nine Wins: Golden Hour Ship’s Crest
Ten Wins: Golden Hour Figurehead
Pirates who already have a count of wins to their name that is a number between rewards under the previous system should simply consider their new count to be level with the highest reward they have achieved in the list above, meaning one more win will earn them their next reward.
We’re also taking this opportunity to establish a new rhythm for the contest. As of the theme beginning on August 31st, #SoTShot contests will run over four weeks instead of three, but each contest will crown 12 winning screenshots. While this means fewer themes in a year, our hazy maths skills inform us that it will result in more winning entries overall.
#SoTShot has remained a popular contest for over six years now, for which we remain thankful, and we hope these changes are met with the energising spirit they’re intended to inspire. We know, however, that this will change certain milestone celebrations that players have used to benchmark success in this contest, and we are exploring some ways to mark the legacy of those early achievers, as well as honour some particularly exemplary efforts in the space. We’ll share more if those explorations come to fruition.
When we sought to reinvigorate #BeMorePirate in 2021, we did so with the simple statement of “do something that impresses us and shows your dedication to the inspiring and adventurous life of a buccaneer, flaunt it with #BeMorePirate on social media and we’ll reward the best boasts we see with a beautiful blue bonnet”.
Over the years the criteria for earning this Nice Hat have become somewhat muddied, so we’re hitting reset on how pirates can get it by returning to that original mantra: show us something impressive you’ve done in the name of Sea of Thieves on social media, in-game or out, and if we’re suitably impressed and highlight your efforts through our website or even a share on a social channel, we shall reward you with the Hat of Unfeasibly Glorious Fame. Cue the classic image!
However, the rewards are no longer limited to just the iconic head covering!
To make it clearer how you can go about trying to earn the Hat, there are now additional Flags that can be awarded alongside it. These serve to highlight clear methods of Hat acquisition (Hat-quisition?), while also providing additional rewards for creative corsairs to strive for. The first of these Flags to be unveiled, and their associated criteria, are…
Gilded Phoenix Flag: While this has been awarded in the past, this flag can now be acquired if we share your highlight showing something fun, skilful or silly that you’ve captured on High or Safer Seas.
Pirate Painter Flag: If we share a piece of art you’ve created, then you’ll be awarded this Flag for your sketching skills.
Pirate Bard Flag: Whether you play an instrument or simply sing a shanty, musical highlights will be rewarded with this sheet.
Poetic Pirate Flag: Put pen to paper, or words to document, and spin us a tale to have your written prose honoured with this flag.
Crafty Pirate Flag: To have the honour of flying this one, your shared highlight will be of a handmade model, cosplay or any other sort of thing you’ve made in real life.
These Flags will join the Hat as a reward for #BeMorePirate highlights from August 31st, with more made available in future to reward other means of expressing your creativity. It’s also worth noting that we will not be retroactively awarding these flags for content highlighted before this date.
Hopefully this makes the methods of earning the Hat of Unfeasibly Glorious Fame clearer, and encourages crafty pirates to try their hands and hooks at a variety of endeavours in pursuit of these unique signifiers of skill!
Running since 2022, #StyleOfThieves is our Seasonal fashion contest that tasks pirates with a penchant for peacocking to sift through their cosmetics and put together outfits for a handful of themes decided by our crew.
This contest is not undergoing any changes today, and will continue to run four themes once a Season, with four winners per theme. We have, however, updated the colour of the Fashionista’s Finery Gloves to look less like Marigolds and look good with the Hat of Unfeasibly Glorious Fame! Pirates who have these specific hand wraps already should be able to admire their matching hue with our next game update. It just felt wrong that the contest about co-ordination awarded a mismatched cosmetic…
While some pirates may want to see tweaks to this contest, we’d be remiss not to point out that we recently announced outfit saving, coming to Sea of Thieves later this year! This may seem tangential, but #StyleOfThieves will be easier to enter when you can flip your pirate back to their chosen cosmetics via your handy list of saved presets, and it will also provide more value when you can easily save any fits you find and take a shine to as an outfit to wear more easily on a later Voyage! Maybe we should have called the game Sea of Fashion after all…
This is just the first step in our efforts to update the Creator Crew so that it fully celebrates the Sea of Thieves you all sail today. We’re aware that the asset resources are a little out of date, for instance, and we’re always thinking about compelling ways to expand the programme for other types of creativity and player efforts. We’re also keen to think about ways this unification of the community’s creative endeavours could give us simpler routes to celebrate the huge range of efforts that the Creator Crew banner now better encompasses.
But that’s all for another time. For now, we hope this step of bringing these previously disparate and sometimes unclear strands together will help to encourage more creativity from old salts, make it easier to understand the efforts you can pursue for specific rewards and ultimately help bring the creative community of Sea of Thieves closer together as we sail ever onward. So to everyone undertaking efforts in the name of the Creator Crew, we’ll see your imaginative and inspiring efforts on the social seas!
