Pirates love hoarding riches, but they also don’t mind spending some money on precious objects. In Sea of Thieves, there’s a currency called Ancient Coins, and you use them to buy unique wares from the Pirate Emporium. However, it’s not easy to get your hands on this currency aside from buying them with real money.
Nevertheless, not all hope is lost, as there are two ways to earn Ancient Coins without spending money. You can find all methods for getting them below.
Getting Ancient Coins
The best way to get Ancient Coins is to buy them with money. Depending on what platform you’re using, you can get it from the Microsoft Store, Steam Store, or in-game Pirate Emporium and Outpost shop.
Here are the costs of the Ancient Coin bundles:
- 150 Ancient Coins for $1.99
- 550 Ancient Coins for $5.99
- 1,000 Ancient Coins for $9.99
- 2,550 Ancient Coins for $22.99
- 4,250 Ancient Coins for $34.99
If you don’t want your bank account to take a hit, consider these methods instead:
Killing Ancient Skeletons
Ancient Skeletons are rare monsters that appear on islands. You can tell them apart from other monsters by their blue and gold bones, as well as the sack of coins they carry on their backs. When they appear, you’ll hear some creepy music and coins falling on the ground.
They spawn close to you when you set foot on islands in either Adventure Mode or The Arena. However, you should take a few minutes to run around to increase your potential of encountering one. To maximize the chances of meeting them, try to visit the islands as much as possible.
Every time they appear, they attempt to escape, and if you don’t kill them within 10 seconds, you don’t get their Ancient Coins. The good news is that they can’t handle many hits. These Ancient Skeletons burrow into the ground if you don’t manage to defeat them.
Upon defeat, you get a message stating you earned some Ancient Coins. You can only check the amount you earn by opening the Pirate Emporium menu. You get one out of three random tiers:
- Skeleton’s Ancient Stash: 100-200 Ancient Coins
- Skeleton’s Ancient Fortune: 200-400 Ancient Coins
- Skeleton’s Ancient Hoard: 400-800 Ancient Coins
There’s no possible method to influence how many Ancient Coins you get or how often the Ancient Skeletons spawn.
Progressing Through the Plunder Pass
Certain tiers of the free Plunder Pass will reward you with Ancient Coins upon earning enough Renown. There are many ways to get Renown, such as:
- Defeat the Kraken
- Visit islands
- Catch fish
- Sell meat
- Complete Voyage chapters
- Cooking meat
- Defeat Skeleton Ships
- Play in Trials
- Participate in events
These tasks don’t comprise an exhaustive list, as the game has much more content in store. Many mundane options can help you earn Renown, too. How much you make, however, depends on the task at hand.
There are three difficulties in Sea of Thieves, namely:
- Swift (Green)
- Grand (Blue)
- Epic (Purple)
The higher the difficulty, the more Renown you get.
Other rewards in the Plunder Pass include Gold and Doubloons.
Give Me That Loot!
The Pirate Emporium offers wares like costumes, emotes, and more, all unavailable elsewhere. Thus, if you have an eye on a particular outfit, you’ll often have to farm for Ancient Coins. If you don’t like spending money, you might end up playing for a long time.
Nevertheless, both Ancient Skeletons and the Plunder Pass offer decent amounts of Ancient Coins. Lucky players who get the highest tier rewards from the skeletons don’t have much to worry about but for everybody else, expect to spend a long-time farming.