Guide to Fishing, Cooking & the Hunter’s Call

This guide covers new mechanics and objectives added to Sea of Thieves in The Anniversary Update. It describes the new types of Food Items in detail, how to Fish, how to Cook, and The Hunter?s Call Trading Company. For other Anniversary Update features, check out:

Every New Feature in the Anniversary UpdateSpoiler-Lite Guide to Tall Tales: Shores of GoldGuide to The Arena & Sea Dogs

NEW FOOD ON THE MENU

In Sea of Thieves, Food is a resource item carried in your inventory which is used to replenish the health bar. You can carry 5 at a time, and store others in a barrel on the ship. Before now the only Food item was Bananas, but The Anniversary Update expands on that tremendously.

FRUITS

Bananas used to be the main source of health, but they?ve been nerfed to make room for many more options. In barrels and beaches around the world you?ll find a variety of fruit types that all heal you varying amounts:

• Bananas- 10% heal
• Coconuts- 20% heal
• Pomegranates- 30% heal
• Mangoes- 50% heal
• Pineapples- 100% heal each bite, lasts for 2 bites

The more powerful the fruit, the less common they are in the world.

MEATS

Meat is gathered either by killing animals (pigs, chickens, snakes, sharks, megalodons, or krakens), or by catching fish on a fishing rod (see GONE FISHING below). When the animal dies, it drops a piece of meat on the ground or the surface of the water to be picked up, which takes 1 unit of a pirate?s food inventory (5 total). Animals inside cages die quicker, so it may be easier to use cages if you find any on hunting trips (sadistic though it may be).

All meat items heal with each bite and last for 2 bites, but need to be cooked to be effective (see NOW WE?RE COOKING below). When cooking, meat goes through four possible states:

• Uncooked Meat- heals little, can cause food poisoning (blurred vision and vomiting)
• Undercooked Meat- heals more but might still cause food poisoning rarely
• Fully Cooked Meat- heals most and prevents food poisoning
• Burnt Meat- heals very little

Each cooking state also sells for different values of Gold and Reputation to the Hunter?s Call (see CALL OF THE HUNTERS below), with Fully cooked offering the most, and raw meats (besides Fish) being unsellable.

Different meats and fish types have varying health returns and sell values, but any cooked meat item will be worth more in health gains than Fruit items because cooked meat fills the Health Regen Bar.

HEALTH REGEN BAR

A secondary pool of health depicted circularly around the skull on the Health Bar. Only cooked meat will fill the Health Regen Bar. When the Health Bar is filled, the overflow of health from a bite of cooked meat will fill the Health Regen bar, acting as an extension of the health bar. That pool dispenses into the main health bar whenever damage is taken, but it?s not instantaneous.

NOW WE?RE COOKING

Cooking is necessary to make eating or selling meat useful. Here?s where you do it and how it?s done:

COOKING PANS

Every ship has a cooking pan beneath the deck, while most island campfires around the world have also been outfitted with a pan. Each can cook one item at a time, so if your crew wants to cook up a lot of stuff, park near an island campfire and use both at once.

HOW TO COOK

1. Approach a Cooking Pan with a Food Item in hand. Use the prompt to put the food in the pan
2. While the item cooks, you can walk away and do something else if you time it correctly, but you?ll need to remove it at the right moment to cook properly
3. Pull the item off the pan when it is completely brown (no pink remaining) but before it turns black. If you?re too late it?s ruined, if you?re too early (still pink) you can put it back and continue cooking. Fish change color until their meat is brown and their eyes gloss over white.

All Food Items can be cooked in the pan, but Fruit and Bait can only become burnt. You should only cook meat items, including Fish. If you plan to sell the Fish, cooked meat is more valuable but the rarer Fish are still valuable raw- you might not want to risk cooking a rare catch for fear of burning it.

GONE FISHING

With the new Fishing Rod equipment item, we can now cast a reel anywhere there?s water. Catching fish gives us an infinite source of meat for eating, but is also the primary way of earning Reputation with the Hunter?s Call Trading Company (see CALL OF THE HUNTERS below).

HOW TO FISH

1. Equip the fishing rod from the second page of the equipment radial.
2. Use primary action button to cast the rod into water. Once cast, the primary action button will reel the line in, and the secondary action button instantly cancels the cast. Wait for a fish to bite
3. A biting fish gets hooked automatically, and then pulls in a direction (either left, right, or away). While it is pulling, you must angle the rod in the opposite direction to fight back. If you don?t pull in this way, the fish escapes. Reeling in at this point is possible but likely to snap the line, especially with more valuable fish.
4. Continue to fight the fish against whatever direction it swims until the line goes slack. This is a brief window to begin reeling in, though the fish will resume fighting after a time. Each time the line goes slack, reel in until after several times the fish will be caught.
5. The Fish remains on the end of the rod until you press the grab button. You must have space in your Food inventory (out of 5) to remove a fish from a line, otherwise it will stay on the rod until you remove it, even if you put the rod away.

BAIT

For some species of fish Bait is not necessary, for others it is. Bait comes in three varieties- Earthworms, Grubs, and Leeches, which are found in resource barrels throughout the game world. You can hold 10 pieces of bait at a time.

FISH VARIETIES

There are 10 species of fish, and each species comes in 5 varieties. Each one has different health replenishing value and Gold and Reputation value, and there are commendations for finding each of the 50 kinds, which reward Hunter?s Call reputation and access to cosmetics.

The 5 sub-varieties under each fish seem to follow a pattern of: common, less common, rare, super-rare, and glowing. For the first four, each is more valuable and less common than the last, with super-rare being extremely valuable to sell. The fifth variety is glow in the dark and only found during the night.

There are also ultra-rare Trophy variations of all 50 fish. Trophy fish are large and much harder to catch, but significantly more valuable.

Each species has a different area where they can be caught, and some require specific types of bait:

• Splashtails: Found anywhere, no bait needed
• Pondies: Found only in inland lakes/pools, no bait needed
• Islehoppers: Found only surrounding islands*, no bait needed
• Plentifins: Found only in the Shores of Plenty, earthworms needed
• Wildsplashes: Found only in The Wilds, earthworms needed
• Ancientscales: Found only in the Ancient Isles, leeches needed
• Devilfish: Found only in the Devil?s Roar, grubs needed
• Battlegills: Found only around active Skull Forts*, grubs needed
• Wreckers: Found only around shipwrecks*, earthworms needed
• Stormers: Found only in the storm, leeches needed

*For these fish, you must be close enough to the location for the Title Card to have appeared naming that location

TREACHEROUS PLUNDER

On occasion, fishing will yield not a fish, but a surprising piece of trash- dead fish, decrepit skulls, ragged hats and boots, etc. Don?t throw the junk away though! The Hunter?s Call will still buy them off of you, and there?s a commendation for selling them as well. Do your part to remove this waste from the sea, would you?

CALL OF THE HUNTERS

The Hunter?s Call is a new Trading Company formed by merry Merrick (from the Hungering Deep campgain) and all of his relatives. They reward you and charts your progress while partaking in the cooking/fishing mechanics described above.

Like the existing Trading Companies, The Hunter?s Call rewards you gold and reputation, in this case for selling them fish and cooked animal meats, which levels you up from level 1 to level 50. Along the way you earn cosmetic rewards at each level tier- the new Killer Whale aesthetic for the Fishing Rod, Tankard, and Ship parts.

When you max out any three Trading Companies to level 50 you become ?Pirate Legend?, granting you access to further challenges and rewards as well as a hidden tavern. There are also a host of Hunter?s Call commendations, described further below, which will also earn you reputation as well as exclusive cosmetics.

The Hunter?s Call differs from previous companies in two major ways:

• Vendors of the Hunter?s Call are not found on Outposts, they are found on Seaposts. This is where you must take fish or cooked meat to gain reputation and gold.
• The Hunter?s Call does not give out Voyages. The other companies will let you vote to start a voyage to go to a specific place to gather their treasures, but The Hunter?s Call does not- instead, they just accept any fish or cooked meat you give them. This makes the Hunter?s Call something to work on while doing voyages from other companies.

COMMENDATIONS

Commendations earn reputation when completed, accelerating your path to level 50. Some are on a scale of five ?grades? with each grade rewarding you for doing a challenge an increasing number of times. Others reward you with a title, which can be worn with pride and sometimes unlocks cosmetic items in the shops.

Fish- each species of Fish has a Grade 5 commendation for each sub-variety (with the fifth grade requiring less and less for each successively rarer subspecies). Each also rewards a ?Hunter of (fish name)? Title once you?ve delivered 1 of every sub-variety. The ?Hunter of (fish name)? Titles each unlock skins for the fishing rod in the equipment shops

• Splashtails- unlocks Bilge Rat, Castaway Bilge Rat, Scurvy Bilge Rat rods
• Plentifins- unlocks Admiral, Ceremonial Admiral, Grand Admiral rods
• Ancientscales- Sovereign, Royal Sovereign, Imperial Sovereign rods
• Wildsplashes- Sea Dog, Ruffian Sea Dog, Royal Sea Dog rods
• Devilfishes- Forsaken Ashes rod
• Islehoppers- Hunter rod
• Pondies- Parrot rod
• Battlegills- Bone Crusher rod
• Stormfishes- Kraken rod
• Wreckers- Oceancrawler rod

Cooking- There are Grade 5 commendations for selling each type of cooked animal meat, and reaching grade five in each one unlocks a different vanity cosmetic in the vanity shop

• Hunter of the Dawn Caller (cooked chicken): Chicken Themed Tattoo
• Hunter of the Wild Hog (cooked pig): Pig Themed Tattoo
• Hunter of the Serpent?s Scale (cooked snake): Snake Themed Tattoo
• Hunter of the Sharpened Teeth (cooked shark): Shark Themed Tattoo
• Hunter of the Hungering One (cooked Megalodon): Megalodon Facepaint
• Hunter of the Monstrous Beast (cooked Kraken): Kraken Facepaint

Merrick?s Accolades-

• Grade 5 challenge for selling Treacherous Plunder
• Title: Captain of the Killer Whale, awarded after buying all 7 parts of the Killer Whale ship (rewarded by leveling up the company reputation)
• Title: Hunter of Trophy Fish (deliver 25 Trophy Fish)
• Title: Master Hunter of Trophy Fish (50 Trophy Fish)
• Title: Legendary Hunter of Trophy Fish (100 Trophy Fish)
• Title: Hunter of the Sea of Thieves (Earn 15 Grade 5 Hunter?s Call commendations)
• Title: Master Hunter of the Sea of Thieves (Earn 35 Grade 5 commendations)
• Title: Legendary Hunter of the Sea of Thieves (Earn 57)