Ubisoft is gearing up for its first AAA launch of 2024 with Skull and Bones. The pirate-themed co-op open-world motion RPG is coming to consoles and PC over a decade after it was initially conceived as an enlargement for Murderer’s Creed IV: Black Flag.
After six delays throughout six years, Skull and Bones is lastly on the discharge schedule for mid-February. For these interested in Ubisoft’s pirate journey, we’ve obtained every thing you have to find out about Skull and Bones under.
Skull and Bones Launch Date
Skull and Bones shall be launched on February 16. Those that buy the Premium Version or subscribe to Ubisoft+ can play three days early (February 13).
Skull and Bones Platforms and Value
Skull and Bones shall be launched for PS5, Xbox Sequence X|S, and PC. It prices $70 USD on consoles and $60 on PC.
Skull and Bones Particular Editions
Along with the usual model of Skull and Bones, Ubisoft is providing a Premium Version for $90. The Premium Version, as detailed by Ubisoft, contains the next:
- Skull and Bones base sport
- Three days early entry
- Premium bonus pack: Bloody Bones Captain outfit & Ashen Corsair Ship Set with 11 completely different ship vainness gadgets
- Two further missions: The Ashen Corsair and Bloody Bones Legacy
- 84-page digital artwork guide
- Digital soundtrack
- Smuggler move token (unlocks a battle move)
Skull and Bones Gameplay
Skull and Bones is an motion RPG that may be performed solo or with as much as two others. Its major gameplay system is naval fight, although you’ll spend time on land as nicely amassing contracts and making ready in your subsequent seafaring journey.
Naval fight seems to be a way more strong model of that present in Murderer’s Creed IV: Black Flag and Murderer’s Creed Rogue. In Skull and Bones, ships will be custom-made in nice element to match your aesthetic and sensible wishes. There shall be 10 ships at launch, every with completely different perks that strengthen particular features of your ship, from offense and protection to navigation and smuggling. Inside every of these ships, you’ll be capable to customise your weaponry, armor, and furnishings — all of which have an effect on a ship’s stats. Weaponry contains cannons, ballistae, mortars, rocket launchers, and torpedoes. On the beauty facet, you’ll be capable to customise the colour of your ship’s hull; the colour, sample, and emblem of your ship’s sails; and your ship’s figurehead. You can too select from quite a lot of pets to maintain you firm at sea — cats and lemurs are two animals Ubisoft has named.
Smaller, but notable open-sea gameplay mechanics embody a spyglass, which lets you establish a ship’s rank and loadout from a distance, and flares, which you’ll be able to shoot into the sky to rally close by gamers to your help. Naval fight is essentially PvE, although PvP battles will be initiated by selecting up legendary treasure maps.
Along with doing battle with different pirate ships, you’ll encounter settlements, manufacturing websites, outposts, and forts. Settlements will be pillaged or utilized as commerce hubs. Manufacturing websites are a particular kind of settlement the place supplies and items will be purchased and bought. Outposts are impartial areas the place you may restore your ship, purchase provides, decide up contracts, and/or fast-travel. Forts are massive settlements of civilized life the place pirates aren’t welcome. These areas are closely defended, that means the encounters shall be among the many sport’s most troublesome. Areas are tiered from 1 to fifteen; the upper the quantity, the higher the assets (and the larger the resistance).
These completely different settlements are run by completely different factions, all of which is able to monitor your habits all through the open world. Angering a faction could make them hostile, doubtlessly closing off commerce alternatives and resulting in extra fight encounters.
Development is framed via Skull and Bones’ infamy system. The extra you make a reputation for your self at sea, the extra alternatives you’ll have to enhance your ship, settle for contracts, and get hold of worthwhile treasure. When you attain Tier 6 of the infamy rank, the sport opens up in a significant manner, introducing you to a secret smuggling ring referred to as The Helm and granting you the flexibility to create your individual pirate lair and start your individual smuggling operation.
Not every thing in Skull and Bones occurs at sea. On foot, from a third-person perspective, you’ll be capable to discover pirate dens reminiscent of Sainte Anne. These are secure zones crammed with distributors reminiscent of shipwrights and blacksmiths, in addition to characters who can flip you on to new contracts or tall tales, which may result in encounters with supernatural enemies.
Whereas it is comprehensible to be skeptical about Skull and Bones given its troubled growth, we got here away from December’s closed beta impressed. IGN’s Travis Northup mentioned Skull and Bones’ strong ship customization made it “really feel like a real naval RPG.”
Skull and Bones Story
Skull and Bones shouldn’t be a story-driven sport although it exists on the Murderer’s Creed timeline. There is no correct marketing campaign, no overarching plot to comply with. It’s as an alternative a live-service sport by which you start as a shipwrecked captain who embarks on a “rags to riches” journey in hopes of creating a reputation for themselves within the brutal world of piracy. From right here out, your gameplay experiences are “the story.”
Nevertheless, there are narrative components. Skull and Bones sport director Ryan Barnard informed IGN there are “pivotal characters” on the earth that “can have bits of story and background that it is possible for you to to [learn through] jobs or the contracts.”
These on the lookout for extra story content material can try Darkish Horse’s three-issue comedian sequence, Skull and Bones: Savage Storm. Right here’s the official synopsis:
A service provider vessel on the excessive seas is besieged by a vicious crew of pirates, however the preventing is interrupted by a devastating hurricane. When the storm crashes in, it leaves predator and prey stranded on an island someplace within the Indian Ocean. Uncover the mysteries and hazard that may betide all of them. A gritty story set within the cruel world of Ubisoft’s upcoming pirate sport.
Ubisoft additionally started a tie-in podcast sequence in 2024 referred to as Gangsters of the Sea (printed within the Ubisoft Echoes of History podcast feed). Narrated by Michelle Rodriguez (Quick and Livid), the sequence explores “the sordid historical past of the Indian Ocean’s most horrible pirates.”
Skull and Bones Improvement
Skull and Bones has undergone some of the tumultuous growth cycles in trendy gaming. What started in 2013 as an enlargement for Murderer’s Creed IV: Black Flag advanced into an MMO spinoff which finally grew to become the standalone sport Skull and Bones.
It was revealed at E3 2017 with a Fall 2018 launch window, although it will miss that window — and many others — because of six delays, finally touchdown on February 16, 2024. Along with modifications in course, Ubisoft attributes the delays to making too many video games directly.
Skull and Bones is the primary authentic sport by which Ubisoft Singapore served as lead developer. The studio beforehand assisted on the event of each mainline Murderer’s Creed sport since AC II. Ubisoft Singapore was assisted by the writer’s studios in Belgrade, Berlin, Chengdu, Kiev, Montreal, Mumbai, Paris, the Philippines, Pune, and Shanghai.
The mission has churned via three artistic administrators, most lately dropping Elisabeth Pellen in September.
It was developed utilizing the Ubisoft Anvil engine, which has beforehand been used to create Ubisoft’s Murderer’s Creed and Tom Clancy video games (except The Division and XDefiant).
Skull and Bones TV Present
In 2019, Ubisoft introduced a live-action Skull and Bones TV sequence. Set through the Golden Age of Piracy, the Skull and Bones present is described as a “female-driven drama set within the lawless frontier of the Indian Ocean on the finish of the golden age of piracy within the 1700s.”
The mission is a collaboration between Ubisoft and Atlas Leisure, which beforehand helped produce DC’s Marvel Girl and Suicide Squad, in addition to SyFy’s 12 Monkeys.
There’s been no replace on the sequence within the 5 years since its announcement.
Jordan covers video games, reveals, and motion pictures as a contract author for IGN.