Sea of Thieves: A Pirate’s Life Easter egg is a treasure chest of fan service

There’s a hell of an Easter egg crossover awaiting Sea of Thieves players at the end of the new expansion, A Pirate’s Life, which launched on June 22. In fact, it’s so good, pretty much even the slyest mention of its adjacent connection to A Pirate’s Life — a crossover with Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean franchise — would probably give it away. Therefore:

[Warning: The remainder of this post will spoil the surprise at the end of Sea of Thieves: A Pirate’s Life.]

At the end of A Pirate’s Life, players explore a shipwreck. Nothing per se unusual there. But as you approach the rotting hulk of splintered masts and tattered sails … well, up the music, as they say:

Bah gawd, that’s Monkey Island’s music!

This isn’t just some fun placement of significant objects or bits of lore, either. Rare went full crossover with LucasArts’ beloved point-and-click adventure series from the 1990s. As the video shows, players encounter items that provide a coda to Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge.

The shipwreck belongs to Capt. Kate Capsize, an NPC from Monkey Island 2 who continually rebuffs player character Guybrush Threepwood’s flirting and innuendo. Capsize offered tours of the waters surrounding Booty Island aboard her glass-bottomed vessel. She later moved over to Phatt Island — these are places called out on the maps left around the shipwreck, of course.

On Phatt Island, Threepwood frames her (putting her face on wanted posters, covering his own) so that he can move about the island freely. The island’s Hutt-like governor throws Capsize in the slammer. The player can choose to free Capsize or leave her in prison; Sea of Thieves posits that the player left her to rot, and when she gets out, she goes looking for Threepwood, intending to raise the wreck of the Headless Monkey (which Threepwood hires Capsize to explore in the 1992 game) and use it to pursue him.

In the original game, if the player frees Capsize, she vows revenge on whomever framed her, not knowing it was Threepwood. Nevertheless, her search does not go as planned, and Capsize ends up in the Sea of Thieves. It’s unclear if any of these skeletons are her crew, or if Capsize ended up like the skipper of her first vessel — dead of boredom, in the Sea of Beige Flotsam.

Sea of Thieves: A Pirate’s Life launched June 22, free to all who own the game — and Sea of Thieves for Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and Windows PC has been in the Xbox Game Pass library since the game launched in 2018. The new expansion features Capt. Jack Sparrow and Davy Jones from the Pirates of the Caribbean film series, accompanied by a new story, new areas to explore, and new cosmetics.