Sea of Thieves takes you to the Sea of the Damned to save Merrick in its next Adventure

Merrick is a familiar face to Sea of Thieves players. “Merry” Merrick is normally the representative of The Hunter’s Call, an NPC faction that would buy meat and goods from you. Recently, Merrick has been absent from the Stephen’s Spoils seapost, on account of him dying and returning as a ghost. His troubles aren’t over, though: the next Adventure sees him kidnapped.

As the new cinematic trailer shows, Merrick has been taken by the Dark Brethren and is being held on a ship in the Sea of the Damned. A Hunter’s Cry, as the Adventure is called, will go live in Sea of Thieves in just a few days. It’ll be available from Thursday, August 18 through Thursday, September 1 — that gives you two full weeks to rescue Merrick from his captivity.

Prior to this, Merrick had disappeared from his post, kicking off the events of the game’s previous Adventure, The Forsaken Hunter. Merrick and the New Golden Sands Outpost have seen a lot of action during Sea of Thieves’ recent story chapters, such as Lost Sands, which had you and Merrick save the latter location. Thanks to some nice Plunder Pass rewards in Season 7, players can even cosplay as Merrick himself.

Not everything in Season 7 has been so well-received though. The focus of the new content is Captaincy, allowing players to ascend to a new rank, own their own special ships, and customize their captain’s quarters inside. New in-game achievements called Milestones were closely tied to Captaincy: completing the uncapped challenges over time would eventually earn your ship Legendary Status.

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Unfortunately, many players complained about a perceived grind associated with the way these Milestones were implemented and tracked, resulting in developer Rare decreasing the requirements tied to all of the achievements. Those changes should lead to a better experience overall for folks diving into A Hunter’s Cry later this week.