Skull & Bones - Ubisoft Singapore, multiplayer pirate ship battles

My favorite part was “our economy emulates the real economy of the Indian Ocean” as if that means anything in regards to loot boxes.

They then follow that up with “There’s nothing more pirate-y than the treasure chest.”

So my read on the situation is to treat them like the pirates did the trading economy of that era and crack their servers to steal loot box code. Immersion!

Those explosions… I didn’t know pirates carried so much gasoline on their ships.

Ubi released their financials today. Bad news.

Gotta fit in a battle royale mode somehow, eh? :v

2020 at the earliest.

A headline just reminded me that this game still exists and supposedly will come out in March.

Curious to see what shape the final game will be in. Loot boxes? frantic PvP? Battle Royal? a serious Sea of Thieves?

VGC was told the new Skull & Bones has moved towards a ‘live’ game model. The game will now feature a persistent game world with quests, characters and storylines that will drastically evolve and change over time based on the collective actions of the community.

This is unlike GaaS titles like The Division 2, which receive regular updates, but relatively static worlds, stories and content.

One person with knowledge of its development said that the social and “live storytelling” elements of Epic‘s Fortnite had been a strong inspiration for Skull & Bones’ new direction. They said the rebooted Skull & Bones would have a stronger focus on collaboration, as Ubisoft is keen to appeal to audiences beyond the competitive action fans who usually play its other series.

The reboot also brought big changes to the game’s leadership, including the departure of creative director Justin Farren, who later joined Wargaming.

Maybe 2022?

“No one wants to admit they fucked up,” said one developer. “It’s too big to fail, just like the banks in the U.S.”

Mantra for the decade.

That was a fascinating read. The article just kept going, with new interesting tidbits of what a nightmare that project is. And then you think it’s done, but no, there’s more.

Is it better to hold onto it or release and have it pilloried like Anthem or Cyberpunk.

Honestly, it can’t have helped things that Microsoft essentially jumped their train with Sea of Thieves. Heck, I like to think I pay attention to this stuff, and for a little bit I didn’t associate that there were TWO multiplayer online pirate games in the works.

Huh, I don’t put them in the same audience space at all. I have zero interest in Sea of Thieves, but I was pretty hyped, at least in theory, for Skull & Bones when it was announced. There’s a world of difference between a “steer the ship” pirate combat game and a “control the pirate” game, especially what amounts to a forced co-op one.

Unfortunately, it sounds like Ubisoft couldn’t figure out which game they wanted to be.

Yes, but that’s you.

For the consumer market at large they don’t need to play similarly or have similar aims to create market confusion. For the greater consumer market who may not follow the games closely, they’re two multiplayer pirate ship games that have Noun Preposition/Conjunction Noun titles.

Follow-up article that is more centered on the studio culture rather than the project itself.

Arise!