How to defeat the ghost ships in Sea of Thieves Haunted Shores update

You can now encounter powerful ghost ships in the Sea of Thieves‘ Haunted Shores update. You may have tangled with skeleton ships that have plunged up from the sea depths, but these spectral ghost ships are a new challenge for you to overcome and come in numbers. There are two methods of finding these ships, and each encounter has you facing off against multiple foes.

How to find ghost ships

There are two methods of finding ghost ships in Sea of Thieves: An Order of Souls voyage, and the Ghost Fleet World Event. The Ghost Fleet World event is also called the Battle with Burning Blade, where you have the chance to face off against Captain Flameheart, who commands a fleet of ghost ships. The Ghost Fleet World event is the more difficult of the two, but you will fight multiple ghosts ships in either choice.

You can obtain an Order of Souls voyage from the Order of Souls representatives at any of the outposts in Sea of Thieves. These representatives have a sign with a purple skull and an eye in the middle of it to make it easy to locate them. They also always have the title “Madame” in front of them. Once you have the voyage, go to your quest items to see where they last spotted. Go to the destination and they should appear shortly after your arrival.

For the Ghost Fleet World event, you need to look for a red skull in the sky with a hat and a beard. The world event features four waves of ghost ship battles, and the final wave will have you facing off against Flameheart’s ship, the Burning Blade.

How to defeat the ghost ships

There are four types of ghost ships you can expect to encounter when facing off against this undead fleet.

• Grunt Ships: These are the basic ship you will encounter while fighting the ghost fleet. You can take them out by hitting them with three cannonballs. They will drop storage crates of the damned, which have wooden planks and cannonballs.
• Ghost Captain Ships: These ships are significantly tougher and feature ghost captain sails. How many cannonballs it takes to defeat them varies, but it’s somewhere between eight and 13 hits. These ships will drop Skulls of the Damned or Captain Skulls of the Damned.
• Ashen Dragon Ships: You will normally encounter these during the final wave of the Ghost Fleet World event, and accompany Captain Flameheart. You will need to hit them with 10 cannonballs. They potentially drop Skulls of the Damned, Ashes of the Damned, Chests of the Damned, and storage crates of the damned.
• The Burning Blade: Captain Flameheart’s ship requires you to hit with 24 cannonballs and is the toughest ghost ship to fight. It will drop roughly 14 skulls, Ashes chests, Damned chests, a Captain Skull of the Damned, a cannonball crate of the damned that have ghostly cannonballs in them.

You want to be careful while following behind them because ghost ships drop mine barrels behind them, attempting to damage your ship while you trail them. If you try to cross paths with them, they will pass through and cause holes in your ship. When you defeat a ghost ship, it explodes with a small shockwave, and if you’re close to it, the shockwave pushes your vessel backward.