Ubisoft’s Skull and Bones Delays: The Complete Long-Long Saga

Skull and bones It began its life as a multiplayer-focused expansion of 2013’s premiere Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag. It then expanded into a larger pirate MMO-like game on its own. A decade later, after its 2017 reveal and multiple delays, Ubisoft’s online pirate segment is still missing. And just yesterday, Skull and bones It has been delayed again without sharing a new exact release date. How did we get here then?

Skull and bones It was first revealed to the public with a big, flashy presentation at E3 2017 complete with gameplay and cinematic trailers. It was clear that Ubisoft had invested a lot in the project. As of 2021, it reportedly cost Ubisoft $120 million. However, some of the staff who worked on the game said that the game barely existed when it was shown, and has since been reworked and changed over and over again as its developers try to figure out what it is and how it will play. Ubisoft is currently selling it as an online hack-and-slash game with an emphasis on combat and exploration he could Have a fun experience. But with each delay, it seems unlikely that the final product will be worth the wait.

Skull and bones Detection, first delay

As mentioned earlier, Skull and bones (then styled Skull & Bones) was first revealed via multiple trailers and videos During Ubisoft’s 2017 E3 press conference. Lots of people liked pirate boat things from Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag And this seemed like a game made up of all that cool boat stuff. When it was first announced at E3, Ubisoft gave it a 2018 release date – which gets funnier and funnier with each delay.

In May 2018, about a year after it was revealed, Ubisoft is late Skull and bones in its fiscal year 2019-2020 which ran between April 1, 2019, and March 31, 2020. “In line with past practice and given the acceleration of digital transformation, the growth in back-catalog sales, and the excellent momentum of recent releases, Ubisoft has decided to give itself more time to develop skull bones To provide players with a more engaging experience,” Ubisoft explained about the delay.

Skull and bones It goes back to E3And The second delay

After that first delay, Ubisoft is back at E3 2018 and showing off more Skull and bonesThis time we introduce a Player Against Extremism (PVE) experience called “Hunting Grounds”. This version of the game and the previous version shown at E3 2017 were eventually canceled as well, according to our own report. Then Ubisoft delayed the game to May 2019announcing that it will no longer ship in the 2019-2020 fiscal year, pushing back its launch date to sometime after March 2020.

the official Skull and BonesTwitter account of Delay confirmed on May 15, 2019. “We’re going to close the doors and stop the game from going backwards,” Ubisoft tweeted. “This is difficult news [sic] For all of us, but this is what is needed Skull and BonesAs wonderful as it can be! “

Skull and bones Go missing, the third delay

then it may be delayed, Skull and bones The radio’s bit gone Until I skipped E3 2019. It seemed like the team was going downhill to focus on game development and Ubisoft had other big games to announce and release. However, when she reappeared, it was only more bad news.

On October 24, 2019about four months after the previous delay, Skull and bones It was delayed again along with a few other big Ubisoft games, such as Watch Dogs Corps And The sixth rainbow stone. Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot confirmed the news on a conference call with investors and said the pirate game won’t be released until sometime after April 2021.

Skull and bones Finally gets the release date, fourth delay

On May 11, 2021Ubisoft execs once again had a conference call and once again had to explain that, yeah, the late game hacker is delayed again… this time, the game has slipped from sometime after April 2021 to sometime between April 2022 and May 2023. Here’s what he said Ubisoft CFO Frédérick Duguet on the delay:

We strongly believe in the creative vision of the team and they have been given an increasingly ambitious mandate for the game. production led [Ubisoft] Singapore has been progressing well over the past twelve months and the promise is better than ever. The extra time will allow the team to fully implement its vision.

in July 2022Ubisoft has finally set a specific release date for the online hacking game. announced that Skull and Bones, after many delays, will launch on November 8, 2022 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Google Stadia, and PC. It also meant that the game was way past the last generation of consoles, which were almost four years old Skull and bones It was announced in 2017, but in 2022 it’s nearly a decade old.

Skull and bones Gets new release date, fifth delay

It seemed like maybe, just maybe, Ubisoft’s troubled hacker would launch, but then on September 28th, 2022, Ubisoft confirmed our own reports and Announce that the match is already being delayed again. The publisher’s new March 9, 2023 release date pushed the game out of 2022. The delay came after a tech test in September that didn’t go well, with players claiming that progress seemed shallow. Here’s what the developers had to say about the delay:

Our team is working hard on refining and balancing the experience ahead of the global launch. As a result, we’ve made the difficult decision to move our release date to March 9, 2023. We’re so excited for all of you to get your hands on Skull and bones And plunge headlong into a dangerous and exciting world to build your pirate empire. To give you the best experience possible, we’ve decided to take a little more time to make sure we can deliver exactly that.

Skull and bones It no longer has an exact release date, the sixth delay

It all leads up to this week. Yesterday, Ubisoft announced that it was delayed again troubled Skull and bones And this time it did not specify a specific new release date. Instead, the game is currently scheduled for release in Ubisoft’s 2023-2024 fiscal year.

“While Skull and bones It’s now complete, and we’re using the time remaining until our launch to leverage feedback from our ongoing technical testing and upcoming open beta to improve and balance the experience,” a Ubisoft spokesperson said. Kotaku in a letter. “To fully realize this launch, we are leveraging the full strength of the co-development studios already involved in the development process, including the Ubisoft Paris studio. Ubisoft Singapore remains the flagship studio. Skull and bones The team is working as fast as possible to try out the game and develop its powerful content after launch.”

Finally, this is a tough road to walk and I’m not sure it’s finished. It seems incomprehensible that Ubisoft is so late Skull and bones Again, but at this point, nothing seems impossible.

if skull and bones Don’t release this year, it will be a decade since game development begins. Since then, it has been teased six times, appeared at several different Ubisoft events and E3, and has been Even outlived Google’s streaming serviceStadia, which it was supposed to launch on.

Today, in early 2023, it’s hard not to feel bad for the countless developers who have poured years of their lives into this game and still don’t have anything concrete to show for it. Hopefully, this all ends with the happy ending of a good game, and not the kind of disappointment that leads to servers shutting down shortly after launch.