As we covered yesterday, one of the more intriguing new features included in Sea of Thieves’ new expansion, The Hungering Deep, is a massive (and most certainly unfriendly) underwater creature that dwarfs even the largest vessels that players can commandeer. Now, we know more about the nature of the creature itself, and how its presence encourages the use of an element that has been woefully underutilized in the game so far: cooperation.
According to this recent report from Kotaku, The Hungering Deep’s new undersea threat is indeed a giant megaladon shark as was speculated earlier, a shark that is aptly known as The Hungering One. Unlike the Kraken, The Hungering One isn’t encountered randomly while sailing the high seas (at least for now), and is instead directly tied to the expansion’s new limited-time story quest. By hunting down a series of hidden journals for the NPC “Merry” Merrick, players can earn a usable drum (one of the other new features included in the expansion). When five different players all use their drum at a specific spot, they call up The Hungering One, kicking off a battle of epic proportions.
Since a minimum of five players is required to summon The Hungering One, that means that even a full crew of friends will need to recruit some extra bodies for the fight (crews are currently capped at four players maximum). Of course, the more players there are helping, the better, since successfully defeating The Hungering One requires some serious coordination, and even a minor slip-up can easily turn you into the massive shark’s next meal. Players who do manage to slay the mighty megaladon will earn themselves a few exclusive customization items as proof of their deed.
It’s not clear yet how The Hungering One will function once The Hungering Deep’s limited-time quest is over, but developer Rare has previously confirmed that the gargantuan shark is a permanent part of the game, so we’ll have to wait and see. For more on The Hungering Deep, be sure to check out the expansion’s official patch notes.