Dodo Request Story

How It All Started

Since June 1, 2023, Skipper Jimi (@skipperjimi) has been tweeting daily requests that dodo birds be added to the Sea of Thieves. How and why did Jimi start down this path?

In the documentary, Sea of Thieves: Voyage of a Lifetime, we learned that owl pets are coming to the Sea of Thieves by popular demand. I do love owls. In fact, I love birds in general. They are fascinating creatures (indeed, the only surviving dinosaurs!). I've raised many kinds of birds since I was a child, and I enjoy watching birds in the wild. So I was happy to hear this announcement, and I will be first in line to buy one of these lovely owl pets!

At the same time, however, I was surprised and amused that a popular meme was actually going to make it into the game. While I do appreciate Rare's sense of humor and attention to its community, I did think there were other creatures that would suit the Sea of Thieves' colorful pirate maritime theme even better than the beloved owl. For example, the dodo bird, which was not yet extinct during the era in which the Sea of Thieves is set. Although the historical dodo was endemic to the island of Mauritius, early concept art tells us that the developers envisioned dodos in the Sea of Thieves!

My first request for the dodo to be added to Sea of Thieves! Click here to see an archive of all dodo requests to date.

In Tales from the Sea of Thieves, Flameheart Jr. (now known as the Servant of Flame) writes about seeing (and perhaps eating!) a dodo on the Sea of Thieves: Most curious of all was a very large, slow-moving and flightless bird that gorged on berries and tiny crabs. I believe we shall be dining on him tonight.

As you will notice in Day 12 of my Daily Requests, I think that eating dodos was the exception, not the norm, among pirates on the Sea of Thieves. Like pirates, dodos are not native to the Sea of Thieves. Much like our pirates, Dodos probably took refuge in the Sea of Thieves to escape the Grand Maritime Union's destructive activities! In any case, whether as a pet or as a wild animal (¿Por que no los dos?), I think the dodo would be an excellent addition to the Sea of Thieves! 

More recently, the dodo appeared in a video posted (and immediately deleted) by the Sea of Thieves official Twitter account. As Ghost Admiral explains, Rare developer James Bowden has tried to explain this dodo sighting away as "a debug thing," but the SOT community will never forget what it saw that day. The dodo is real!

So, considering its long history in the Sea of Thieves, the simple fact that it is a very cool animal, and the overwhelming support it has received since the debug debacle, on June 1, 2023, I decided to bring attention to the dodo by creating daily requests for it on Twitter, and I will continue until the dodo finally makes its appearance in the game!

The Dodo's popularity with the SOT community was evident in a Twitter poll by @HLariash that attracted 620 participants. Our campaign was only ten days old, but the dodo was already locked in a virtual tie with one of the oldest and most beloved memes on the Sea of Thieves!