Sea of Thieves Renown: How to Earn It Through Trials, Challenges

Sea of Thieves is no stranger to monthly or semi-monthly content, with Rare having provided regular updates for the last year or so. Now pirates everywhere have access to Season One and the pass that comes along with it. Season One introduces new cosmetics, free in-game currency, and exclusive items for holders of the Plunder Pass, the paid tier. Advancing the Season Pass takes “Renown,” a new form of experience unique to seasonal progression.

The system is fairly straightforward, and we’re going to go over everything you need to know to make it through all 100 tiers without a hitch.

What is Sea of Thieves Renown?

Renown is a unique type of experience outside of the standard progression bars in Sea of Thieves. It won’t get you reputation with any of the Trading Companies, and as such, won’t move you closer to Pirate Legend.

In short, Renown exists solely to advance the Season Pass.

How to Earn Renown

Earning Renown is both incredibly easy and exceedingly tedious.

At its simplest, just playing the game normally awards it. It doesn’t matter what you do because the game now tracks almost any action you can take. Logging miles by sailing the seas and putting treasure on your boat are perfectly valid ways of getting Renown.

Valid, but not efficient. Here’s what you can do to speed things up. 

The Pirate Log

If you want to maximize your gains, you’ll have to be more creative. New to the Pirate Log is a long list of Trials and Challenges that reward much larger sums of Renown.

There are four Trial categories and three difficulties per Trial type.

Trials of Adventure

These ask you to go out into the world and seek your fortune. You’ll complete these Trials through work for the Trading Companies, experiencing Tall Tales, or other money-making schemes.

Trials of Exploration

These Trials are exactly what they sound like: about exploring. Go to the islands dotting the ocean and decode their secrets. Find the Mermaid Statues, Skeleton Thrones, and other mysteries.

Trials of Combat

These ask you to get into trouble. Take the fight to the skeleton crews and their ships, or make life difficult for your fellow pirates. The source of the mischief doesn’t matter, only that you make it.

Trials of the Sea 

These are all about the bounty you take from the waves. Fish all around the world, kill and cook up some sea monsters, or sail far and wide. If it happens on the water, it’s a Trial of the Sea.

Trials come in easy, medium, and hard difficulties, though “difficulty” is better stated as “grindy.” The easy ones, listed in green, don’t ask much. A few are situational, like killing one shark with an explosive barrel, but most don’t require too much additional planning.

The hard Trials, by contrast, aren’t just situational; they take a lot of time.

Take Seasoned Cook. You not only have to fight and kill both Krakens and Megalodons, you then have to cook the meat perfectly, eat it, and turn it into the Hunter’s Call faction. Lastly, you have to burn 10 pieces of food. And you have to do each of those things 10 times.

Hard? Debatable. Time-consuming and needing a bit of luck? Definitely.

Challenges

Lastly, there are limited-time challenges that ask you to work for a specific faction or take certain actions that will eventually reward Renown.

As of writing, the only challenge available is from the Order of Souls, seeing you collect soul fragments during Order of Souls Voyages, skeleton ship encounters, and Flameheart fleet fights.

Season One also introduces new cosmetics unique to the Order, so you’ll get Gold, Renown, and some sweet threads all at the same time. As with any adventure in Sea of Thieves, Trials and Challenges are best accomplished with friends, but solo play is possible. Expect the grind to at least double in difficulty if you play alone, though. 

Ultimately, play the game however you’d like, and the Seasonal progress will come. The joy of Season One Renown is the freedom to earn it how you please, just like earning your fortune on the Sea of Thieves. For more piratey tips and tricks, consider heading over to our Sea of Thieves guides page.