The storm continues for Ubisoft, which is certainly experiencing stormy years. The French studio is betting on Skull and Bones to right the ship while its stock market value continues to plunge into the abyss.
What happened to Skull and Bones? Ubisoft’s original title, first announced in 2017 and pushed back six times, seems to have buried itself after its last announced postponement in January 2023, or so many gamers feel. It must be said that the development of this piracy game has experienced many storms, while on the side of its developer and publisher Ubisoft, the skies have been largely covered in recent years. A dangerous cocktail for a project that is increasingly struggling to prove its relevance, ultimately defining itself more as a multiplayer naval combat game rather than the open-world piracy RPG it seemed destined to become. A look back at a unique and chaotic story.
After all these years of waiting for information on Skull and Bones, after the gameplay presentations of July 2022 and the start of technical tests last September, players thought they had finally reached the end of a hectic sea voyage. It was without counting on Ubisoft which officially announced on September 28, 2022 that the game’s release would be postponed to March 9 before announcing a new postponement in January 2023. A decision taken in the name of the game experience: “In order to provide you with the best possible gameplay experience, we have made the decision to take a little longer.“wrote the studio then in a twet.
Yet another brake on a project that has experienced one of the most chaotic development in the history of video games. First planned as a DLC for Assassin’s Creed Black Flag before becoming a standalone project that ended up landing in the arms of the young antenna of Ubisoft Singapore, Skull and Bones has long remained vague. The fault of multiple decision-making changes which led to no less than six release postponements and various gameplay upheavals, so that Ubisoft finally gave it a name and tease it for the first time under its new pavilion at the E3 show. 2017. Six years later, the game is still in the drawers, but would be on track for a release end of 2023according to the latest financial reports from the French publisher.
It must be said that Ubisoft is greatly seeking to regain a foothold after several catastrophic years on the artistic and financial level. The legendary studio has indeed lost nearly 50% of market value over the last twelve months, and is seeking at all costs to reassure its investors by sending positive signals on its various upcoming releases. On this level, moreover, he can only count on the next Assassin’s Creed Mirage, the only project guaranteed a minimum of success and a semblance of a release date, expected for the start of the 2023 school year. Skull and Bones for his part hasn’t shown anything yet to convince gamers, while the next game Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is still extremely elusive. In short, the next few quarters are likely to be crucial for Ubisoft, which, it seems, no longer has the right to make mistakes.
A ten-minute presentation in July 2022 shed some light on the exact nature of Skull and Bones gameplay. The game puts you in the shoes of a castaway, destitute, trying to survive in a hostile environment. Your goal? Build a ship, gather a crew, develop your reputation and unlock new equipment in an open world populated by more or less hostile NPCs and other players. The progression system is based on your reputation. By completing certain contracts, you can accumulate reputation and thus gain access to new ships, weapons and equipment.
Of course, you can fully customize your pirate, your ship and your crew. You will be able to control the weapons of your ship, manage the morale of your crew to avoid mutinies and accumulate outfits to become the most stylish pirate of the 18th century. When it comes to threats in the world of Skull and Bones, you’ll need to watch out for privateers who relentlessly hunt down pirates, but also other players who might just be interested in the contents of your hold. It will also be possible to join forces with other players and form flotillas to carry out certain missions.
As for the fights, Skull and Bones seems for the moment to be limited to only naval battles. No transition to melee during boarding or landing, the latter remaining entirely reserved for in-game cinematics. undeniable. For Skull and Bones, it is above all a question of offering a game of navigation and combat at sea almost close to an MMO. Although it is entirely playable in solo, the game seems to take the form of a service game, its universe marked by free updates deployed as the months follow its release. And although the mention of a battle pass has not yet been made, we are betting heavily on its presence in the game knowing the Ubisoft fanatic.
Skull and Bones is still in development and offers players the opportunity to participate in the various playtests that will take place throughout the year. To do this, you will need to go to this page and select the platform on which you plan to play the game (PC, PS5 or Xbox Series X|S). You will then receive instructions by email, if you are selected, on the different ways of accessing the different playtests of the game.