A Message in a Bottle is a naturally spawning Item exclusive to the Shipwrecked DLC. It can be found lying on Beaches or floating in the Ocean, and appears as a regular bottle with a piece of paper inside. Once the message has been read, it will turn into an Empty Bottle.
Upon reading the message, the player's Map will automatically open and a red X will be placed on it, possibly in an area the player has already explored. If the player travels to the location, they will find two bones laid out in the formation of an X in a pile of dirt which can be dug up with a Shovel to uncover a Chest and two Bone Shards. This Chest usually contains valuables such as Dubloons and Gems, but may also occasionally cause Snakes to appear.
Each Message in a Bottle corresponds to a single treasure location determined during world generation, making them a finite resource.
Don't Starve Together[]
–Wurt
A Message in a Bottle is also found in Don't Starve Together, introduced in Return of Them. They are found naturally in the Coastal Ocean, and can also spawn every 1 to 2 days 40m from the players in the Ocean. The spawning bottle will need 5m of clear space in the Ocean, and must be at least 35m from any flotsam. The spawning attempt will happen even if the player is on land, but the attempt will fail and retry every 60 seconds.
The first message read by a player reveals the Crabby Hermit's location, unless the player already met the Crabby Hermit. Otherwise, reading a message has a 34% chance to generate and reveal a new Sunken Chest (100% if you give Crabby Hermit Cracked pearl) and a 66% chance to reveal nothing. If 10 or more markers are active at a time, the position of an already existing Sunken Chest is revealed instead.
After reading, the Message in a Bottle turns into an Empty Bottle.
Quotes[]
If a Message in a Bottle does not reveal a position, it will contain a message instead:
- I know you're still out there, my dear. I won't ever give up.
- I'm waiting for you. At the spot where we first met. I've been waiting so long...
- Please come home. I miss you so much.
- I still have the last gift you gave me. "A pearl for Pearl"... remember?
- I'll keep sending messages, until one reaches you...
- Have you found your treasure yet? When you do, will you come home?
Trivia[]
- If the player tries to spawn the Message in a Bottle using the Console and reads it, the character will say "This message is faded, I can't read it".
- If the player carries a Message in a Bottle and uses the Teleportato to teleport to a new world, once reading the bottle they'll say "This doesn't look like a map of this place".
- Messages in a Bottle were introduced to Don't Starve Together in the She Sells Sea Shells update.
- In DST, if the player writes in the command line "c_give("messagebottle_throwable",1)" then the game will give out a bottle with a message that can be equipped and thrown at objects or on the ground. If you throw this bottle with a message at an object in the sea, it will sink.