Skull & Bones finally gets a new release date

Ubisoft Singapore’s Skull & Bones has finally been given a new release date.

According to a new trailer shown during The Game Awards 2023, the game will be released on February 16, 2024.

Players will be able to play the game three days early if they pre-order the Premium edition, Ubisoft says.

The game will also have a closed beta which will take place on December 15-18.

Skull & Bones has had a troubled development. It was originally scheduled for release in 2018 but has been delayed on a handful of occasions, with the project also rebooted in 2020.

In January, Ubisoft announced that the game would miss its previously announced release date of March 9, 2023, for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, Amazon Luna and PC.

The game was then scheduled for release during the publisher’s current fiscal year ending in March 2024, a target that will be hit if its new release date is met.

Although it appears that the game is finally nearing its release, its long-running development problems have shown no signs of abating.

A Kotaku report in September said the game had lost its third creative director, Elisabeth Pellen, who had been responsible for rebooting the project after its initial 2018 release target was missed.

Pellen, who most notably wrote and directed 2003 shooter XIII and led level design for Splinter Cell’s first sequel, Pandora Tomorrow, had been expected to remain at the Singapore studio until at least the end of this year, it was claimed.

“Five years ago, Elisabeth Pellen went to Ubisoft Singapore with a mission to reboot the creative direction of Skull and Bones,” a Ubisoft spokesperson told Kotaku. “She succeeded, and the Skull and Bones team is now fulfilling her vision to deliver a unique naval action RPG experience to our players.”