Now that the final beta for Sea of Thieves has closed, fans (many of whom just had their first taste of the game) will be waiting until March 20 until they can play the game again. However, to keep the hype alive, Xbox and Rare have revealed a pre-launch competition that’s very in-keeping with the spirit of the game.
First announced on the premiere episode of Inside Xbox, the Quest for the Golden Bananas is essentially a digital treasure hunt which will see teams from across six countries (UK, US, Canada, Australia, France and Germany) compete for a prize of four golden bananas worth £80,000 in total.
Anyone can take part in the hunt and it'll task players to crack 15 clues in order to find where X marks the spot.
B-a-n-a-n-a-s
The quest will begin with the reveal of the first riddle on Monday, March 19 at 12 am PT / 8am GMT / 7pm AEDT. After this, a riddle will be revealed every three to four hours over the next three days until the total of 15 is reached.
On Wednesday March 21 at 1pm PT / 9pm GMT / 7am AEDT (Thursday, March 22) those taking part will have seven hours to input the answers to the riddles at xbox.com/thebananaquest.
After this there'll be a final riddle to be solved by the top teams from each of the six participating countries (US, UK, Australia, Canada, Germany and France) and the winning team will walk away with the prize.
The prize of a bunch of bananas isn’t quite as, well, bananas as it might sound. Those familiar with Sea of Thieves will know that eating bananas (skin on, of course) in the game is the way to increase one’s health. While we wouldn’t try eating one of these golden bananas, we’re pretty sure £80,000 would make for a good real-life health boost.
Even those who don’t come in first place won’t walk away empty handed – runners up will be rewarded with limited edition Sea of Thieves golden ‘doubloons’ valued at over £300 each.
You can, of course, attempt to go it alone with this quest but we’ve been informed these riddles won’t be easy work. Just like in Sea of Thieves itself, then, it could very well be worth teaming up with a crew to make this a more manageable collaborative effort. Teams can have a maximum of four members, which makes those four golden bananas pretty convenient to split.
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