For years, many assumed Skull and Bones was a ghost ship; the Ubisoft pirate recreation that will by no means make it to harbour. Having suffered six public delays, it’s one of probably the most ceaselessly postponed video games of all time. The close to whole silence that surrounded it yr after yr satisfied those that it was both completely anchored on the port of improvement hell, or that it had already sunk to the underside of the ocean. However throughout the halls of Ubisoft Singapore, a whole bunch of builders have been navigating a storm of design issues in hunt of their white whale.
Now, virtually seven years because it was first revealed, Skull and Bones is able to set sail. However this last model could be very totally different to the sport we first noticed in 2017. Throughout its improvement journey the naval battler has modified types a number of occasions, with its last design rising from a serious reboot that extended improvement and left a number of prototypes shipwrecked. That is the within story of Skull and Bones’ many delays, and the challenges that precipitated them.
In Skull and Bones, the Indian Ocean is your playground. You’re free to discover its open world and seek out the meals and supplies it is advisable survive within the golden age of piracy. You’ll be able to tackle contracts that construct your infamy and push you in the direction of the last word aim of changing into a fearsome pirate kingpin. Its story is minimalist, selling your personal adventures and the self-made tales of the opposite gamers that additionally sail these on-line seas.
However Skull and Bones wasn’t all the time this live-service, open-world survival recreation. Actually, Skull and Bones has been a number of totally different video games – or a minimum of concepts for video games – earlier than it turned what it’s right now.
Our story begins in 2017, when Ubisoft revealed a model new pirate recreation at its annual E3 convention. The presentation was led by artistic director Justin Farren, a member of Ubisoft’s Singapore studio and a veteran producer of Murderer’s Creed because the days of Black Flag. On stage, Farren defined that “Skull and Bones takes place in a shared, systemic world the place you may sail solo or type a gang of pirates with your mates, and collectively terrorise the commerce routes of the Indian Ocean.” However that shared world was not what Ubisoft confirmed in its gameplay demonstration.
The stage demo confirmed off a 5v5 multiplayer mode known as “Loot Hunt”, which gave the impression to be a naval-themed tackle hero shooters like Rainbow Six Siege and Overwatch, quite than the kind of seafaring MMO Farren had described. However Ubisoft assured that Skull and Bones could be larger than what we’d seen; it will have a shared world, seasonal content material, and a story marketing campaign that will move into the multiplayer expertise.
All of this, Ubisoft mentioned, would launch within the fall of 2018. One yr later, simply weeks earlier than E3 2018, Skull and Bones was pushed again till “a minimum of 2019”. Regardless of the delay, it was nonetheless half of Ubisoft’s E3 convention, and it seemed radically totally different to the way it did in 2017. Somewhat than 5v5 multiplayer, the brand new demo showcased a cooperative recreation wherein gamers teamed as much as take down a robust enemy warship. Was this the shared world that had been promised the earlier yr? Or had Skull and Bones morphed into a special recreation completely?
“We prefer to see it as an evolution of the sport, and not a special recreation essentially,” says Kris Kirkpatrick, lead technical artwork director at Ubisoft Singapore and a long-serving veteran of Skull and Bones. “We knew we had one thing nice. It was feeling nice. It was trying nice. However why do not we provide extra?
“We needed to do the most important pirate and Naval open-world recreation we may do,” he says.
As E3 2018 drew to an in depth, few individuals would have anticipated the 4 years they must wait till they noticed Skull and Bones once more. The following yr it was delayed till someday after March 2020, and Ubisoft’s E3 2019 convention went forward with out even a single new screenshot. Simply months later a third delay was announced. In 2020, Ubisoft revealed that the studio had discovered a “new imaginative and prescient”, which subsequently led to a fourth delay. Because the years and delays glided by, not a single factor was seen of Skull and Bones.
In July 2021 the lengthy silence was damaged, however not by Ubisoft. A damning report from Kotaku painted an image of a studio in chaos. It claimed that over the course of eight years Skull and Bones had been helmed by three totally different artistic administrators, every of which labored to totally different paperwork, that means that many ideas – together with an Murderer’s Creed spin-off and the modes we’d seen at E3 – had been scrapped in favour of constructing totally different designs. Nameless interviews with present and former builders instructed that the mission was a mismanaged nightmare missing course. It was a report that raised dozens of questions, however the largest of them was the best: what on Earth was occurring inside Ubisoft Singapore?
Ubisoft Singapore began life in 2008 as a small assist studio. Over time it has grown from a handful of individuals to a couple hundred employees, engaged on recreation franchises equivalent to Prince of Persia and Ghost Recon. Its most well-known creation, although, is Murderer’s Creed 3’s naval fight, which went on to type the foundations of AC4: Black Flag. With that series-defining success, the Singapore workforce noticed a brand new and thrilling future for themselves. They needed to be greater than a assist studio. They needed to take naval fight to the following stage and create an unique recreation of their very own. However making an awesome recreation is much from a straightforward process, significantly when it’s your first time as a lead developer.
“There’s nothing within the online game trade that is more durable than constructing a brand new IP,” says Darryl Lengthy, managing director of Ubisoft Singapore. “You assume you understand what the sport is, however you are actually, in some ways, discovering as you go and discovering out what resonates along with your gamers. You want time to discover that.”
“You are looking for the recipe. You are looking for that core gameplay loop,” explains Kirkpatrick. “Not every little thing makes it, however you study from all of the issues that do not make it and hope that what’s left is the most effective it may be. It is a journey.”
Creating a brand new recreation is tough, nevertheless it’s much more of a problem with out management. In late 2018, artistic director Justin Farren was making preparations to depart Ubisoft Singapore. He would go away the next summer season. However the want for a brand new artistic director raised questions on extra than simply management. What was this recreation’s id? Was it a PvP multiplayer enviornment, or a co-op open-world? Was it a story marketing campaign or a live-service recreation? If Skull and Bones was to outlive this improvement storm, it wanted assist. The search was on for a brand new captain.
Ubisoft knew that Skull and Bones was in want of an skilled regular hand. That seniority was present in Elisabeth Pellen, a twenty-year plus Ubisoft veteran and Vice President of its Editorial Workforce. Pellen had important expertise in directing video games with on-line options, and so it was believed she was ideally suited to a mission trying to work out its personal multiplayer id.
“[Ubisoft was] on the lookout for somebody to assist them […] to show probably the most promising prototypes and demos right into a fuller recreation expertise,” recollects Pellen.
Prototypes. Demos. Regardless of having initially deliberate for a 2018 launch, Skull and Bones was nonetheless within the prototyping section by the tip of that yr. And whereas the open world had been showcased at E3 that summer season, internally Skull and Bones was nonetheless a small-scale multiplayer recreation.
“The five-versus-five was enjoyable to play, however generally it was tough for the participant to manoeuvre inside an enviornment with such massive ships,” Pellen says. “As a result of the ships did not have so much of customizable choices, it was tough for us to mission on the long run. With the open world, the sport expertise added extra potential.”
However that potential was nonetheless in its early levels. Regardless of having been mentioned as half of the preliminary reveal, the open world nonetheless didn’t exist past the demo constructed for E3 2018. Up to now, it was only a style of what Ubisoft Singapore hoped Skull and Bones would someday develop into.
“The chunk of open world was a 15-minute demo that showcased totally different courses of ship. It was not but a complete open world,” Pellen confirms. “[The development team] tried to develop the PvP enviornment and the open world in parallel, nevertheless it was a bit of bit difficult for the workforce as a result of it was the primary time that the majority of the skills had the chance to create their very own IP.
“We thought that it will be safer and possibly extra fascinating for different gamers to totally concentrate on the open world,” she concludes.
If Skull and Bones was to succeed, the Ubisoft Singapore workforce would wish to seek out its focus. On Pellen’s recommendation, all employees would transfer to the open world design and construct that up from a demo right into a full recreation. Another concept the workforce wasn’t totally succesful of constructing in parallel could be cancelled, and so the 5v5 mode was deserted. A 3rd mode – the beforehand promised narrative single-player marketing campaign – was additionally in improvement, and that will additionally should be scrapped.
“Constructing a solo marketing campaign is actually time-consuming,” Pellen admits. “We did not have the complete workforce to ship a full solo marketing campaign.”
Past the problems with improvement of the sport itself, Pellen noticed that the Singapore studio was “remoted from the opposite studios and [Ubisoft] HQ”, and so believed that the workforce wanted somebody skilled in constructing and launching an entire, unique recreation. Her long-term Ubisoft profession put her in a great place to supply this experience.
With Pellen because the ship’s new captain, Skull and Bones would lastly discover its true heading – the “new imaginative and prescient” that Ubisoft would later announce in 2020. However why a brand new imaginative and prescient? Why, after years of improvement, previous visions, and little real progress, did Ubisoft not simply cancel all the mission? Why have been employees not reassigned to different video games?
“That is a query I am positive many individuals have,” agrees Darryl Lengthy. “Why has this recreation continued for thus lengthy? I believe that in lots of different firms, possibly it would not have survived so long as it has.”
“Ubisoft helps tasks they imagine in, groups they imagine in,” says Ryan Barnard, former senior recreation director on Skull and Bones. “This did not really feel fairly proper, however they needed to see what they may do and in order that they requested a really skilled artistic to come back in and check out how she may affect the mission.”
There was, apparently, one other issue, too. Kotaku’s report claimed that the studio made a cope with the native authorities that requires Ubisoft Singapore to launch an unique recreation throughout the subsequent few years. In brief: the studio could also be legally required to ship Skull and Bones. When IGN requested if that is true, Ubisoft declined to remark.
Regardless of the small print protecting it in improvement, one factor was clear: Skull and Bones wanted remodeling. It wanted to depart its marketing campaign and 5v5 mode behind and totally concentrate on the shared open-world that it had promised. And so Pellen moved to Singapore and took over as artistic director, able to rally the workforce round a brand new imaginative and prescient.
“I arrived on the mission with one easy query: ‘How do you develop into a pirate?’” says Elisabeth Pellen. “What blew my thoughts was that, [during the age of piracy], all these legendary pirates within the Indian Ocean began with virtually nothing. To develop into the rockstars of the seventeenth century they needed to face unpredictable storms and survive mutinies, shark assaults, and generally hunger.
“All of a sudden for me, it made this fantasy extra relatable as a result of it implies that anybody may develop into a pirate.”
The concept of that journey turned the inspiration for Pellen’s imaginative and prescient: a live-service, open-world recreation all about survival. This new model of Skull and Bones would function useful resource gathering, buying and selling, and crafting. A deep development system would chart your rise from a no person to a infamous kingpin. If it was a key half of the harmful life of a pirate, Pellen needed it within the recreation.
“We actually needed to make it possible to the participant to jot down their very own story,” says Pellen. “As a substitute of engaged on a solo marketing campaign that will have prevented the workforce from creating a extremely deep open world, we constructed lore that may be consumed like a puzzle within the order you need.”
Pellen’s imaginative and prescient was successfully a reboot that refocussed the workforce again to its unique promise of a shared, systemic world. However the place a reboot at Ubisoft would usually see a workforce diminished all the way down to its core creatives and then slowly constructed again up as the sport took type, Ubisoft Singapore was unable to try this.
“All the brand new IPs at Ubisoft went by way of one or two reboots,” Pellen explains. “Within the case of Skull and Bones, we may probably not reboot the sport, as a result of we couldn’t run down the workforce. We needed to proceed. We needed to make some changes, however to proceed to work with 500 individuals.”
However the improvement workforce confronted that problem head on. By constructing the brand new imaginative and prescient across the core naval fight programs that the studio had already crafted for 5v5 multiplayer, they ensured that Skull and Bones didn’t must be began once more from scratch. A lot of the workforce’s earlier exhausting work wouldn’t be misplaced.
“There’s all the time issues that you could salvage,” says Barnard. “A reboot isn’t a complete reboot. The navigation, how the ship felt, all of these issues [that were] within the recreation you noticed [at E3], they felt good. However how can we deliver that right into a development system for the participant? How can we add extra depth to that fight, and not simply extra ‘arcadey cannons go growth’ sort of gameplay? All of that wanted to be launched to the sport.”
“It received so much larger and technically it received much more advanced,” recollects Kris Kirkpatrick, lead technical artwork director. “It’s half of the explanation why we’d like extra time.”
Rallied round this new survival imaginative and prescient, the Singapore workforce equipped into full improvement. And by July 2022, 4 years after its final public displaying, Ubisoft was assured sufficient in Skull and Bones to disclose its new type to the world. However quite than being met by unanimous applause, this re-reveal was greeted by cautious scepticism and combined emotions from the gaming neighborhood.
“We [were] a bit of bit unhappy that some gamers anticipated Murderer’s Creed: Black Flag 2,” Pellen admits. “For the reason that starting of this reboot, we collaborated with gamers by way of our insider applications and we did so much of playtest periods to ensure that the processes of creation [would] observe gamers’ expectations.”
The greatest suggestions, of course, comes when gamers have truly been capable of play the sport. And that was deliberate to be quickly – the re-reveal got here with the primary strong launch date: November 8, 2022. In lower than half a yr, the workforce’s work would lastly be in gamers’ fingers.
Three months later, Ubisoft delayed Skull and Bones for the fifth time.
Three months after that, Ubisoft delayed Skull and Bones for the sixth time.
Six delays throughout six years. Few video games have suffered as many publicly introduced postponements as Skull and Bones. It’s a scenario that’s broken the sport’s repute, turning it into the butt of many web jokes. However the re-reveal proved that Skull and Bones was nonetheless alive. Not simply alive, however apparently on monitor. Virtually prepared, even. So what occurred?
Skull and Bones’ early years noticed the studio wrestle to seek out the precise design framework. That accounts for the primary delay. However whereas the workforce was placed on the precise path when Elisabeth Pellen joined in 2019, the journey in the direction of her survival-focused imaginative and prescient couldn’t be completed throughout the initially deliberate timeline. The subsequent 4 delays have been the outcome of quite a few design struggles, from expertise shifts to easily guaranteeing the sport was enjoyable sufficient for gamers.
“The particularity of Skull and Bones is that our complete world is a social hub,” explains Pellen. “It is a full seamless PvE and PvP expertise supported by PvE servers. It required so much of expertise to work exterior of their consolation zone.
“While you construct a seamless world devoted to producing emergent content material, you need to settle for that half of the content material will escape your controller,” she continues. “It is so tough to manage the participant expertise that it took us some whereas or so [to complete development].
“We needed to contain accomplice studios as effectively, to assemble totally different items of content material and put them collectively and combination them right into a world,” she provides. “It took a while. The extra systemic a recreation is, the extra bugs you need to repair as effectively.”
Additional complicating issues was the discharge of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Collection consoles. The elevated energy of these machines was naturally a boon for an open world stuffed to the horizon with technologically-advanced water expertise, and so the choice was made to make Skull and Bones a new-generation unique. The course of to transform the sport from previous to new-gen took virtually six months, and put the brakes on different elements of improvement.
“While you port your recreation [to] a brand new engine, half of the workforce cannot work,” explains Pellen. “[They] cannot work together throughout that point.”
However advanced work and shifting timelines weren’t the one points endured by improvement employees. In the summertime of 2020, the Singapore studio was caught up in the wave of allegations facing Ubisoft relating to office toxicity, harassment, and misconduct. Following an investigation, managing director Hugues Ricour was removed from his position in November 2020 in response to unacceptable behaviour. Ricour was reassigned to Ubisoft’s Paris HQ and changed by Darryl Lengthy, who moved to Singapore in March 2021.
Ubisoft Singapore’s managerial points seem to increase past simply Ricour, although. Posting to firm assessment web site Glassdoor, former employees have criticised studio administration for lack of course and incompetence. Talking to Kotaku, one former developer mentioned “The poisonous tradition permeating the Singapore studio is in no small half accountable for most of the manufacturing points—reboots, rebrands and re-reboots—which have plagued Skull & Bones for a decade.”
When requested if administration had struggled to deal with the mission, a Ubisoft spokesperson mentioned “The well-being of our groups is our first precedence, and we’re dedicated to repeatedly enhancing our office and manufacturing insurance policies and processes to make sure we’re providing a wholesome work setting for all our groups. Close to enhancing circumstances through the rush to finalize a mission, we have now taken steps to handle this by implementing instruments to facilitate extra environment friendly mission administration, working nearer with High quality Management groups early in improvement, and integrating extra checkpoints throughout manufacturing to be higher ready for launch.
“Within the Singapore studio, we have now put in place versatile work insurance policies and tailored advantages to assist a wholesome work life stability. We even have in place an worker wellness workforce, and are proud to have seen their work been acknowledged by a number of trade awards for his or her efforts in selling psychological and bodily well being. That is an ongoing course of, and we should proceed to be agile with a purpose to construct a greater work setting for our groups.
“Our groups are totally centered and motivated to create nice experiences for our gamers.”
With so many improvement problems and pressures, delays have develop into a reality of life for Ubisoft Singapore’s builders. To work for thus a few years on a seemingly endless mission can generally be discouraging, and so taking care of the workforce’s psychological well being has been necessary.
“There’s an influence,” says Kris Kirkpatrick. “We’re working actually exhausting and of course we wish individuals to expertise and play what we’re engaged on, however I believe it is necessary to not be so finish aim pushed. So we settle for that the delay means extra time to make a greater recreation.”
“It is a powerful one, proper?” says Ryan Barnard. “It is actually about ensuring that the workforce sees it as not a unfavorable factor, as a result of it virtually by no means is. So actually, it is about workforce well being. How can we be sure that the workforce understands why and what we wish to accomplish with that additional time?”
“An amazing instance of a function that did get added afterward within the improvement is the Infamy system,” says Darryl Lengthy, referring to the development system that charts your rise to pirate kingpin, with every stage unlocking new instruments. “In some ways, that is one of the central pillars of the sport.”
Alongside these delays, the mission has additionally seen a rotation of senior employees. When it was introduced in 2017, Invoice Cash was Skull and Bones’ recreation director, however he quickly moved onto Murderer’s Creed: Valhalla. Affiliate recreation director Antoine Henry additionally moved onto AC: Valhalla in 2018, solely to rejoin Skull and Bones in 2021 and then leave by the end of that December. Senior recreation director Ryan Barnard, who joined in 2021, would solely stick with the studio till spring 2023. Artistic director Justin Farren was changed by Elisabeth Pellen, who has additionally since left the mission, though Ubisoft says her artistic duties are actually full. The outcome of these employees adjustments is that, in its last months of pre-release improvement, Skull and Bones has been captained by relative newcomers, with its senior producer and recreation director having joined the studio in 2022. Regardless of their expertise, although, they’re nonetheless desirous to ship one thing particular.
“I believe the profit for me coming in on the finish was recent eyes,” says Juen Yeow Mak, Skull and Bones’ present recreation director. “I had so much of stuff that I may discover, I haven’t got to be prototyping some issues if it has been explored earlier than.”
“There’s so much of accountability I believe that we as a workforce have,” says senior producer Neven Dravinski. “The narrative is, ‘Hey, when is that this recreation launching?’ After I confirmed up right here, that was my aim instantly: ‘When are we going stay?’”
Ubisoft has lastly settled on a agency launch date for Skull and Bones: February 16, 2024 – 15 months and two delays later than its beforehand deliberate November 2022 launch.
“On the finish of the day, the sport wasn’t the place the corporate needed it to be,” Dravinski reveals. “The final 12-18 months have been doubling down on the issues which might be nice about this recreation, and in order that required extra time, that required extra public-facing checks, extra technical checks, extra deep diving into the nuances of core naval fight.”
Over the previous yr, the workforce has made enhancements to the ship courses, or ‘archetypes’, in an effort to raised talk which vessels are greatest match for particular roles. As with many multiplayer video games, there are DPS, tank, and assist choices, and the traits of every are actually extra pronounced and “pushed to the extremes”.
A closed beta take a look at, held through the summer season of 2023, helped form a refreshed person interface, and ushered in a brand new character within the type of Asnah, your Singaporean first-mate, who acts as a dwelling tutorial and information. Moreover, one of the sport’s most controversial mechanics has been reworked.
“One factor that got here up so much [in player feedback was the fact that] boarding is just a cutscene,” says Juen Yeow Mak. “So we acted upon it. Boarding is now [conducted] utilizing grappling hooks. It’s worthwhile to intention, it is advisable have a sense of vary. It is now not as easy as simply urgent a button.”
The previous yr has additionally seen Ubisoft Singapore rethink Skull and Bones’ relationship with the supernatural parts that underpin in style seafaring tales like Pirates of the Caribbean and Monkey Island. Whereas sea monsters have been hinted at in trailers because the preliminary reveal, when IGN visited the studio in 2022 the plan was to introduce legendary parts in future DLC. These plans have since shifted, and the launch model of Skull and Bones will function ocean beasts and ghost ships.
“Eradicating the constraints of historic accuracy actually excited the workforce fairly a bit,” says Dravinski. “We’re investing in naval fight in an area that is impressed by seventeenth century Indian Ocean piracy, nevertheless it’s actually enjoyable to have the ability to say, ‘What’s our subsequent sea monster that we’re engaged on? How is the ghost ship transferring ahead from right here?’”
“I believe the extra that we centered on the enjoyable, the extra that we centered on what was cool, I believe the sport then actually took on a life of its personal,” he provides. “And I believe that is put us now on the trail to have the ability to, in a really public manner, on the Sport Awards say, ‘You understand what? We’re prepared. We really feel like we have completed what we have been making an attempt to do during the last couple of months. It is time to get on the market and go stay.’”
For near a decade, Ubisoft Singapore has been constructing and rebuilding Skull and Bones. The workforce, each long-serving veterans and latest recruits, have been by way of so much. However they’ve lastly made it to the harbour.
“It is wonderful the quantity of resilience that they’ve proven,” says Darryl Lengthy. “The adjustments in course, these are issues that the workforce has adjusted to as they go and mentioned, ‘We’re not giving up. We will ship this recreation and we will make it nice.’”
“It was not straightforward to create an awesome synergy between the navigation and the aiming system, however they succeeded,” says Pellen. “We developed it in an enormous open world. I believe it is the most important open world that Ubisoft has ever created. Now this open world gives so much of alternative to develop new actions, new narrative layers. We planted so much of seeds which might be thrilling to develop.”
However the journey doesn’t finish right here. In some ways, it’s only the start. All of that onerous work was in service of making a stay recreation that can proceed to evolve. And so now improvement begins on DLC, seasonal content material, and the longer term of Skull and Bones.
“The seasons could have themes,” reveals Ryan Barnard. “That is the place we might introduce new enemy varieties, new factions, some of the issues we talked about, possibly extra fantastical enemies. It is also the place we will react to the neighborhood and usher in new parts that possibly they have been asking for that we did not assume of. However Ubisoft has already dedicated to this recreation for years sooner or later.”
With these seasonal ambitions, Ubisoft Singapore hopes that Skull and Bones is right here to remain, and that gamers will discover one thing to cherish amongst its lovingly created digital waves.
“I believe gamers will discover their very own story within the recreation,” says Lengthy. “If after they’ve performed the sport for 5 years, they’re going to look again and they’re going to say, ‘I used to be the one defining what it means to be an notorious pirate and I received to inform my very own story’ – possibly sooner or later they’re ranked on the prime of the world and they’d be capable of look again and say, ‘I used to be probably the most notorious pirate on this planet’ – I can not assume of something cooler than that.”
Turning into the house for a passionate neighborhood of on-line pirates is the last word aim for Skull and Bones. However regardless of its eventual success, and regardless of the difficulties confronted by employees, the journey up to now has been one thing necessary for Ubisoft Singapore.
“I do really feel like Skull & Bones will likely be half of us for a very long time,” says Kris Kirkpatrick. “It is our first lead triple-A [game] popping out of Singapore. I hope we do not overlook about that. We ought to be proud of that.”
One large reboot. Three launch dates. Six delays. Skull and Bones’ journey throughout the event waters has been removed from straightforward. Thought after concept needed to be jettisoned and thrown away. Excessive-profile departures and scandal rocked the studio. However the dedication of the event workforce helped see the mission by way of even the darkest days.
Over a few years Skull and Bones has been many issues, however its last type is now able to set sail. And that last type is, maybe surprisingly, the one promised in its very first public look: a shared, systemic world wherein gamers attempt to develop into the last word pirate kingpin. But it surely’s a type that implies that what Skull and Bones is right now is probably going not what will probably be tomorrow. Its evolutionary cycle now begins anew, the design shifting and altering as Ubisoft Singapore reacts not simply to the calls for of its administration, however its gamers, too. It’s a future that’s becoming of a recreation that’s continuously modified since its inception.
What’s going to stay fixed is the story. The story of a improvement workforce who endured every little thing in effort to deliver their first full, unique recreation to life. No matter that recreation was, no matter that recreation is, and no matter that recreation could also be, the legend of Skull and Bones will lengthy be as well-known because the black and white flag its pirates fly.
The interviews on this article have been edited for size and readability.
Matt Purslow is IGN’s UK Information and Options Editor.