Sea of Thieves Harpoon | How to Reel

If you’re playing Sea of Thieves, chances are good you’re using the Harpoon a lot. It’s a key staple of your seafaring ship, hooking on to objects and enemies. It can also pull in treasure and other useful items, or maneuver your ship out of harm’s way. Have you shot out the Harpoon but can’t reel it back in? Fear not, as we break down how to reel in the Sea of Thieves Harpoon.

How to Reel In the Harpoon in Sea of Thieves

Sea of Thieves Harpoon

Here’s how to reel in the Harpoon in Sea of Thieves:

  • First off, fire your Harpoon. If the spike doesn’t catch anything within its fire radius, it’ll automatically reel back in. As such, you won’t have to do anything.
  • If it does catch on something, one of two things can happen:
    • Firstly, if it is a light item like a chest, it will reel in your new acquisition once it has latched on. You won’t have to do anything to achieve this.
    • If it hooks onto something more substantial, like a large enemy or structure, you’ll need to manually reel in the Harpoon. This is done by pressing the alt fire button. On PC, this is the right mouse button. On Xbox One and Series X/S, it’s LT.

In some cases, you’ll have to release the Harpoon first, before reeling. Luckily, that’s an equally simple process – all you have to do is it the fire button once more. That’s left click on the mouse, or RT on Xbox. With that done, the Harpoon will be loose, so you can reel it back in with one more command.

Once you hit the alt fire button, it’ll reel back in, so you can fire again. If you’re quick with your fire buttons and practice, you can get pretty speedy with the hook. That’ll let you grab items more quickly – and retract from less desirable attachments, if needs be.