Skull and Bones - "After ten thousand years in development, I hope it was worth the wait"

[DogZero]

Current (Stockholm syndrome) and former "fans" of the Assassins' creed series might have fond memories of a particular entry, AC 4 Black flag.

A major part of the game involved being captain of a pirate ship, sailing the Spanish main pillaging ships and fighting boarding actions to your hearts content.

It wasn't very deep, and is nowhere close to my dream of a true spreadsheet pirate simulator, but it was flashy, gratifying and genuinely fun enough to make it possibly the most popular entry in the franchise.
Attempting to take advantage of this rare upswell in goodwill, ubisoft announced a standalone game focusing on this ship to ship pirate combat in 2017 called "Skull and Bones".

This title has reportedly gone through multiple directors and iterations since, being worked on by the Z team at Ubisoft Singapore. We got a trailer a few years ago but that appears to have been an earlier, entirely different version of the game. What was originally going to be a team based pvp game is now a "pirate simulator".

Now, almost 5 years since the original announcement we finally have a gameplay trailer and release date.

Game looks extremely barebones, it is confirmed that boarding is a cutscene, not a real battle, you only leave your ship at havens and despite advertising itself as a "pirate life simulator" has very little management elements. You can set it so your only MP experience is PVE or include PVP. Game also takes place in the Indian ocean, which while an interesting setting in its own right, might be disappointing to those who expected a quintessential Caribbean pirate experience. Game appears to be built from the ground up to support and push paid cosmetics, perhaps even gear and weapons, this is ubisoft so expect the worst. The trailer is also.... strange. The female pirate models look very bizarre to me.

Reception in the comments appears lukewarm at best, outright hostile at worst.
All these questions are compounded by the fact the game is releasing a day before the new God of War. Maybe a case of destined to fail? Push it out the door?
Director promises pets (including parrots) post release. I have my doubts this game will get much support post release

edit: Thought it might be worth mentioning that this game is only coming to current generation consoles (ps5 Xbox Series X) and pc. Indicates to me literally nothing has survived from the first iteration of the game, and what will come out has only been made in the last year or so despite being announced in 2017.

edit again with long kotaku article detailing this games long journey, has actually been in development since 2013

https://kotaku.com/first-it-was-an-assassins-creed-expansion-now-its-ubis-1847326742

Edit 1/11/23
thanks @The Doom Slayer

Bumping because the game has apparently been delayed AGAIN.

https://www.videogameschronicle.com...nnounced-games-and-delayed-skull-bones-again/

This thing has dumpster fire written all over it.

Game is now expected in April-March 2024, over a full year delay from its release date originally set the day before God of War Ragnarok. We might be in for another total rework.

 

[Dom Cruise]

At least we're getting something than the game being canceled completely, but it's stupid that it's 5 years later and we're still getting a pretty bare bones game, why did they not finish and release what they first started?

 

[Mega Black]

At least we're getting something than the game being canceled completely, but it's stupid that it's 5 years later and we're still getting a pretty bare bones game, why did they not finish and release what they first started?

They had no idea how they were going to cram tons of live service elements into the game, took them years to figure it out, or just stop trying.

Basically this is a total miss and, though I'm sure it will rake in tons of money from faggots with zero taste and no self-control, I have no interest in it. We really, really, need a good Pirate life-sim RPG or something, where you spend equal times sailing the seas, finding treasure, swashbuckling, and managing your crew. It's a goldmine of an idea, wasted on the Assassin's Creed I.P. and the greedy kikes at Ubisoft have pretty much guaranteed that nobody will touch the genre with a thousand foot pole.

 

[Morethanabitfoolish]

Sounds conceptually interesting.

But the actual gameplay stuff looks a lot like Kingdom Hearts 3's Pirates of The Caribbean world I know that being on a pirate ship always will look fairly similar but it feels very familiar.

 

[Lord of the Large Pants]

They had no idea how they were going to cram tons of live service elements into the game, took them years to figure it out, or just stop trying.

Basically this is a total miss and, though I'm sure it will rake in tons of money from faggots with zero taste and no self-control, I have no interest in it. We really, really, need a good Pirate life-sim RPG or something, where you spend equal times sailing the seas, finding treasure, swashbuckling, and managing your crew. It's a goldmine of an idea, wasted on the Assassin's Creed I.P. and the greedy kikes at Ubisoft have pretty much guaranteed that nobody will touch the genre with a thousand foot pole.

Sid Meier's Pirates! was okay, although a little dated now.

 

[Mega Black]

Sid Meier's Pirates! was okay, although a little dated now.

Doesn't that game lack active swashbuckling?

 

[Lord of the Large Pants]

Doesn't that game lack active swashbuckling?

You can duel enemy captains. It's part reflexes, part rock paper scissors. Not the BEST combat system, but it's alright.

 

[Mega Black]

You can duel enemy captains. It's part reflexes, part rock paper scissors. Not the BEST combat system, but it's alright.

Eh, I'd say for a real pirate sim to totally get it right you need some kind of meaningful action or swashbuckling sword fight system.

 

[Maurice Caine]

To this day the best Pirate-themed game is LeChuck's Revenge and that's pretty sad to think about considering how far we've come.

 

[Ser Prize]

AC4 worked because both the sailing and on-land stuff was there. This is gonna fail.

 

[Miller]

I wonder how much money was wasted on the development throughout the years just to end up with a soulless online-only game.
The trailers scream "dead on arrival".

 

[thejackal]

You can duel enemy captains. It's part reflexes, part rock paper scissors. Not the BEST combat system, but it's alright.

I was super into "Blackwake" a few years ago back before it turned into abandonware and pop died to like 10-20 active instead of 1-2K. The swordplay was absolute garbage but the overall concept with a team on the boats was rock solid. Too bad the devs cashed out and made a bunch of shit awful changes for casuals then just bounced.

Someone needs to make a team and round based pirate combat game like Blackwake except actually commit to it. I'd buy it.

 

[Vault Boy]

Why is Ubisoft so adverse to boarding & non-ship gameplay when Black Flag was praised for those things too?

A spiritual successor to Black Flag without ties to Assassin's Creed would've been a good new IP, I don't get their thought process here.

 

[Wintersun]

Why is Ubisoft so adverse to boarding & non-ship gameplay when Black Flag was praised for those things too?

A spiritual successor to Black Flag without ties to Assassin's Creed would've been a good new IP, I don't get their thought process here.

Even if they were afraid it wouldn't sell because it wasn't attached to a big name IP like Assassin's Creed, there's plenty of shit they could have attached it to. Could you imagine an Erol Flynn game playing like Black Flag?

 

[bebopsingh]

Why is Ubisoft so adverse to boarding & non-ship gameplay when Black Flag was praised for those things too?

A spiritual successor to Black Flag without ties to Assassin's Creed would've been a good new IP, I don't get their thought process here.

You see that requires effort and mainly appealing to people who want to spend money on a game like that, which Ubi won't make.

We're living in this weird trend where movie and video game studios alienate fanbases and potential fanbases to the point of insulting them in order to appeal to people who are not interested at all.

Look at Netflix's Cowboy Bebop or Disney's Star Wars trilogy.

 

[DogZero]

A spiritual successor to Black Flag without ties to Assassin's Creed would've been a good new IP, I don't get their thought process here.

the weird warped corporate think probably would put that in the same genre as AC even if its a different IP and they don't want to compete with themselves.

Recall the original idea for this game was small team based pvp, like 5v5s. This was announced 2 years after the release of siege, back during its initial rocky first few years before it became big.

Bet you that's why they changed it as well, didn't want to compete with themselves once siege got big cus these execs with no gaming experience somehow think siege and a 5v5 pirate ship game are in the same genre just cus they are both technically team mp games.

So now it has to fill a weird niche where it cant be too much like ass creed with the land exploration and swashbuckling but also not a competitive team game, but also has mp but also is a simulator, but not too much so it still appeals to a wide audience. Rn this game just looks like a platform to sell ship cosmetics, with no strong central idea beyond "pirate simulator", and its clear they only finally settled on that way too late in development to do it justice.
I suspect this "one size fits none" result is a product of that weird genre thinking up in leadership.

 

[Maurice Caine]

the weird warped corporate think probably would put that in the same genre as AC even if its a different IP and they don't want to compete with themselves.

I never understood the why? Take Two did that by purposefully fucking with 2K Czech's development in Mafia II and depriving us of a masterpiece.

 

[Mega Black]

Why is Ubisoft so adverse to boarding & non-ship gameplay when Black Flag was praised for those things too?

A spiritual successor to Black Flag without ties to Assassin's Creed would've been a good new IP, I don't get their thought process here.

I dunno, boarding barely worked in Black Flag to be fair, the combat in that game was shitty too. Maybe it's just really hard to get right.

 

[Milwaukee Macho Man]

Only Ubisoft could make a fun pirate game with Black Flag and spend 10 years completely fucking it up.

I'm also going to assume it's set in the Indian ocean so they can have all the nogs and chinks in the trailer.

 

[Kramer on the phone]

At least we're getting something than the game being canceled completely, but it's stupid that it's 5 years later and we're still getting a pretty bare bones game, why did they not finish and release what they first started?

because of a contract to get government funding they literally can't cancel the game. it would be an international accident, having said that, the long article on the decade long fuck up showed that instead of doing the smart thing (ship combat but deeper and almost no land action) they spun their wheels with a deeper plot line and fucked themselves until they just went ahead and did just that.

They had no idea how they were going to cram tons of live service elements into the game, took them years to figure it out, or just stop trying.

Basically this is a total miss and, though I'm sure it will rake in tons of money from faggots with zero taste and no self-control, I have no interest in it. We really, really, need a good Pirate life-sim RPG or something, where you spend equal times sailing the seas, finding treasure, swashbuckling, and managing your crew. It's a goldmine of an idea, wasted on the Assassin's Creed I.P. and the greedy kikes at Ubisoft have pretty much guaranteed that nobody will touch the genre with a thousand foot pole.

they could have just done cosmetics like every other live service does, especially once battlepass became the new wave and lootboxes died.

they could have taken the crew management scheme from the AC games too, sending them landside to do "missions" for you to level up and come back stronger and more powerful to help with boarding ships. same with the weird crafting from 3, just do the same thing but not as limited or a waste of time.

also that rare pirate game is supposedly a great alternative.

I dunno, boarding barely worked in Black Flag to be fair, the combat in that game was shitty too. Maybe it's just really hard to get right.

combat sucked. the games went backwards from AC1, 2 was ok, but the chain kills in ACB meant you just have to counter one guy and suddenly they all go down. at least with 1 it was a massive pain to fight anyone and while countering with a hidden blade was an insta kill, it was either get the timing right or die. meaning you truely had to be a badass.

you're right though, boarding was such a hassle because it was guaranteed you'd kill any group of 20 and under, and the fact that it was exclusively something you do after destroying the ship instead of an alternative meant you'd be boarding a dozen of the fuckers in one engagement.

also would multiship combat have even worked? especially with boarding. you'd be literal sitting duck for the rest of the team to fire on you.