Signups for the latest closed beta are now open.
You have to give credit to Ubisoft for persistence: Another developer might’ve scuttled Skull and Bones ages ago, but Yves Guillemot and co. keep blowing into its sails, trying to propel it forward, and so it is that another Skull and Bones closed beta is coming next week.
For those just tuning in, Skull and Bones was announced in June 2017 as an open-world game of high-seas piracy, based on the seafaring bits of Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag, which came out in 2013. It was supposed to be out in 2018, but multiple delays have kept it from setting sail. In 2022 it looked like we were really and truly going to finally get our hands on it, but after a brief period of heady hope, a long-awaited gameplay reveal failed to impress, and just a couple months before the slated launch in November 2022, it was delayed again. And then, for good measure, again.
Don’t they have a legal obligation to release this game due to financing they took which would force them to pay a huge penalty if they didn’t release it?
Don’t get me wrong, I think they could still salvage this into an okay game, I just don’t have my hopes up that it’ll be a good one.
Last Ubisoft game I bought was Far Cry 6, which was better than I thought it’d be, but it was still not great, and I dropped it after I finished the campaign. I feel like Ubisoft doesn’t know how to make original feeling games anymore. They stopped experimenting, and it shows.