Ubisoft says Skull & Bones is now a ‘multiplayer-first’ game
The long-in-development pirate adventure is still due out in Ubisoft’s next fiscal year
Ubisoft has reiterated that its long-in-development pirate adventure Skull & Bones will release during its next fiscal year starting April 2022, and confirmed the game is now “multiplayer first”.
Skull & Bones has been delayed countless times since its announcement nearly five years ago, but it’s now had a rare nine-month stretch since its last delay.
Speaking during Ubisoft’s latest earnings call on Thursday, CFO Frédérick Duguet provided an update on the game’s new direction since it was internally rebooted in 2020, as per an exclusive VGC report published the same year.
“It’s a very promising new IP focusing on multiplayer first, so very consistent with our strategy to bring multiplayer competition and co-op first in a big open world, with a great, attractive fantasy,” he said.
“That’s of course a longer development time that we’ve had on that game, but we’re very happy with the artistic direction and the progress of the game so far.”
When Skull & Bones was first announced, it was described as a game in which players could explore the Indian Ocean either with friends or by themselves in a single-player campaign.
In 2020, VGC’s development sources indicated that Skull & Bones had changed direction and moved towards a ‘live’ service game model.
We were told the title would feature a persistent game world with quests, characters and storylines that would drastically evolve and change over time based on the collective actions of the community.
According to alleged game details shared more recently by industry insider Tom Henderson, Skull & Bones will also feature survival game elements, with players starting off with a basic raft and needing to collect resources and complete quests in order to build a ship.
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Player progression is said to be based on the amount of money received from completing jobs, raids and cargo runs, and from plundering settlements.
It was reported last year that Ubisoft Singapore was under investigation due to allegations of sexual harassment and discrimination.
In 2020, Ubisoft Singapore managing director Hugues Ricour was replaced following misconduct allegations and left the studio, but he continued to remain employed by Ubisoft.
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