Skull & Bones update explains new direction, promises more next year

Skull & Bones
(Image credit: Ubisoft)

Skull & Bones will be receiving an internal reboot after Unibsoft revealed it wasn't happy with the direction the title was going in. Now we've received an update on where the developers are in this process.  

"Production on Skull & Bones has been in full swing with a new vision," Ubisoft Creative Director Elizabeth Pellen wrote in a blog post. "Our teams at Ubisoft Singapore are fully committed to launching the game, as well as supporting it for many years to come."

Pellen further explains why Ubisoft felt it had to reboot and postpone the launch of the game, citing a need for more development time. "We dreamt something bigger for Skull & Bones, and these ambitions naturally came with bigger challenges. These difficulties resulted in necessary delays for our game," she wrote.

As a result, "many new talents" joined the development team. Pellen describes how the studio needed to consider how to "modernize the classic pirate fantasy ... to ensure a more immersive and visceral experience" and "create cool and memorable moments in-game."

Pellen promises a "comeback" of Skull & Bones next year and that the team's "confidence in each other’s talents is what motivates us to push Skull & Bones towards the finish line and beyond."

Video Games Chronicle revealed a couple of months ago that Skull & Bones would become a "live" game because the title had been unable to set itself apart from Ubisoft's existing catalog of games. This is unsurprising; the game had previously received criticism for looking like a boiled down Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag.

Skull & Bones was initially announced in a cinematic trailer in 2017 and received a gameplay presentation a year later. We haven't heard much else about the game since then, making it difficult to imagine what it'll look like in its rebooted form.

Claire Tabari
Staff Writer

Self-described art critic and unabashedly pretentious, Claire finds joy in impassioned ramblings about her closeness to video games. She has a bachelor’s degree in Journalism & Media Studies from Brooklyn College and five years of experience in entertainment journalism. Claire is a stalwart defender of the importance found in subjectivity and spends most days overwhelmed with excitement for the past, present and future of gaming. When she isn't writing or playing Dark Souls, she can be found eating chicken fettuccine alfredo and watching anime.

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