How to Set Traps in Sea of Thieves

Knowing how to set traps in Sea of Thieves can be very useful, even if it’s not exactly one of the core mechanics. You can use this knowledge to both protect your treasure and make the lives of opposing players a brief nightmare. In this guide, we’ll explain how to set traps using gunpowder barrels and give you a few ideas on what you can do to mess with other people.

How to Set Traps in Sea of Thieves

To set traps in Sea of Thieves, you need to get your hands on at least one gunpowder barrel and bury it in some soft soil, aka sand. You can obtain barrels of explosives in several different ways, one of the most effective ones being looting inactive skeleton forts; those have tons of the stuff lying around. Then, it’s just a matter of burying them somewhere. Place the barrel onto a patch of sand, take out your shovel, and then complete the “bury” button prompt. Keep at it until the barrel is completely underground. You’ll know that you’re done when your pirate pats the ground with the shovel. And there you go, your trap is set. The moment somebody tries to dig in that location, the barrel’s fuse will light and they’ll have mere seconds to run away.

Now that you know how to set traps in Sea of Thieves, what should you use them for? Well, there are two ways to use this tactic, defensive and offensive. Defensively, you can bury a few barrels around a treasure that you’ve buried somewhere for safekeeping. Offensively, there’s the move of burying a couple barrels next to known treasure locations and let other players dig them up. Keep in mind that buried barrels don’t appear as an X on the map, but you can definitely put some nearby. For more sneaky ideas, check out Rare Thief’s video below.