As I've stated elsewhere, I love the Age of Sail (and piracy) and Skull & Bones is one of less than a handful of games that would lure me into multiplayer...

... if it would ever release.

Well, now we have an article that details the "development hell" of Skull & Bones, and it looks like after all of these years the game is $120m in the hole and still nowhere near release. Ambition, pride, inexperience, and incompetence... it's all there (and more).

What began as a Black Flag expansion mutated into a monster.

Sad.

Kotaku article

link: https://kotaku.com/first-it-was-an-assassins-creed-expansion-now-its-ubis-1847326742

Belular News "Ubisoft's $120 MILLION Disaster..." (video)

link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1mA44h2VlA&t=1489s

Dang, if I ran a game company and a game was nowhere near release with even a third of that budget spent, i'd replace the one in charge of spending the money(and maybe some of the other staff that were responsible). A friendly tip: if you ever want to avoid linking to such sites, use sites like archive (dot) today

Their hands are tied by the Singaporean government. Ubisoft took a subsidy that their keisters couldn't fulfill due to scope creep, mismanagement, and poor communication kills.

If I were Ubisoft, I'd take the L and just surrender the game.

I've been following this game for years and I wouldn't say that's an accurate characterization.

It didn't begin as a "Blag Flag expansion," but rather, as a stripped-down, far inferior version of Black Flag. Literally the only better thing it had than Black Flag was better graphics, and everything else was far worse.

Skull & Bones was going to have no land gameplay...so in other words, you literally played as a boat itself 100% of the time, and not as a human pirate.

And it also had no boarding battles either.

I'm not sure whether or not they changed those points a year or two ago when they claimed the game was going to be massively revamped.

But given that they started out based on the very horrible premise of having no land gameplay and no boarding battles, this game was always a disaster/trainwreck/massive flop waiting to happen. Had they released it like that, then it probably would have flopped harder than Ghost Recon: Breakpoint did.

Ubisoft should have cancelled this game immediately after it became clear that it was shaping up to be a vastly inferior version of Black Flag. The fact that they didn't bespeaks foolish decision-making on their parts.

https://kotaku.com/first-it-was-an-assassins-creed-expansion-now-its-ubis-1847326742

is this game really that bad?
hmm for 120m $ i would have expected a well made game
this happens when they give the job to those who just wants to be paid and dont actually make something worthy

btw why archive link did they remove the post?

I am not suprised. The biggest mistake was to make it multiplayer only. Sure black sails systems were great, ship combat and upgrade. But a lot of the appeal was the story, the characters, and the music, all linked together with the systems. It worked as a package. Ripping all of the bits other than some of the systems was never going to work. Multiplayer only works in a few of the released scenarios (how many failed mmo’s?) and that only because of PvP. What they should have done is a proper sequel to black sail, but instead of that they removed the whole ship part until odyssey (ok, origin had a tiny bit of ship combat), and even then it was limited and boring most of the time. Valhalla also missed the boat (no pun intended) on this, and then failed to address it with river raids.
I can still picture standing on the deck in the moonlight listening to leave her Johnny, or picture the ending of parting glass and old friends, these are what elevated the game, and you will never get that with multiplayer (mmo).

I hate pirate themed games.

I'm not surprised. Ubisoft have spent so long copy-pasting the same "Tower Climbing Simulator" Far Cry 3 template they've become a "One Trick Pony" and struggle outside of that. It's usually the smaller "simple fun" games that catch most people's attention for multiplayer, eg, World of Tanks / Warships, Among Us, Rocket League, etc. You all know full well that this will be stuffed up to the eyeballs with those sweet, sweet whale-centric micro-transactions to try and force that $200 per game target...

How do you feel about piratical vegetables who stay at home, and lie around?

Always had half an eye on it but since we are talking about a modern multiple A and UBI Soft title on top I fully expect it to suck all the little details that would make it a great thing.

So far nothing it able to top this dated looking pearl (basically crash-free COAS on steroids). And I don't expect S&B to do either.

I agree for the most part...

... although...

... IMO Naval Action is a great one-trick MMO ;)

Black Flag I've played through multiple times. I completely agree that a sequel would have been best (and IMO Libertalia would have been the perfect basis). I would have been fine with less of a story focus and more combat, trade, management, and base / town building -- a pirate game as opposed to particularly an AC game -- but solely MP naval combat that was already done quite well in BF? You're right... would have felt like a step backward in many ways (whether technically it actually was or not).

I agree, the naval combat was pretty great. I would have, in a sequel, liked to have seen more upgrade, ship selection. There wasn’t a huge amount of tactics available, so choices of ships, weapons would have been nice. I agree on the base building part. Also I would ditch all the modern day bits, and the collectibles. Who knew the Caribbean had chests on every single inch of land! Some variety in towns/town actions too. Heck I still don’t see why they don’t push an old anvil engine out for modders to use, community could ramp out some great stuff, just look at what has been done on the sea dogs series (including maelstrom engine on itch.io). Oh, that may be a good suggestion for you, have a look at those games and the maelstrom engine:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/937940/Sea_Dogs_City_of_Abandoned_Ships/
https://chezjfrey.itch.io/gentlemen-of-fortune-maelstrom-engine

Thanks! Yeah, I haven't yet downloaded the engine and GOF mod... but I certainly will. It looks amazing.

IMO Ubisoft should have poached from former Akella talent and just done a new pirate IP. What are a lot of them working on now? Tempest aka Jolly Roger.

What I find strange is Ubisoft was quick to push out AC Rogue which -- minus the pirate storyline -- capitalized on many of the same aspects of Black Flag... and yet... Ubisoft couldn't get Skull & Bones out-the-door.

A perfect candidate for the pre-order scam.

Drum up a frenzy of anticipation with bold claims and unrealistic trailers, then have naive 'I want it first' gamers pay off your debts. Later, feign surprise, offer some hasty patches and put your feet up in the sun with a little parasol in your drink. Simple. And more importantly, legal.