Pirate adventure game Skull and Bones has had a tortured development history, with recent events hinting at big trouble for the Ubisoft project. However, this new info suggests that everything isn’t actually going as bad for the project as it seems.
As reported by PC Gamer, Ubisoft has a tremendously improved build of Skull and Bones, and they are currently sitting on it.
Ubisoft CFO Frederick Duguet was asked about the game in the company’s latest financial report. Here’s what he had to say:
“We said in January, we’ve been very happy with the playtest that we’ve seen in early January, so we have a very strong improved version to show to players that they haven’t seen yet. So this is really what we are going to leverage in the next month to drive more momentum on the game.”
It’s certainly an optimistic statement, if not quite vague. Given that the game was revealed in the 2017 E3 expo, and actually started development as far back as 2013, Ubisoft must have really found a breakthrough that could finally take Skull and Bones down the path of going gold.
Ubisoft’s piracy game has gone through repeated delays for many reasons, including the fact that the game was rescoped and redesigned a few times. In fact, that description very closely matches that of a famous long delayed game turned notorious bomb, Duke Nukem Forever.
To be clear, Skull and Bones doesn’t seem like it will take the same path as Duke Nukem Forever. In their latest delay, Ubisoft promised they would provide frequent gameplay and preview updates to keep fans engaged, and they have followed through on this promise.
Tom Henderson claims to have been in contact with Ubisoft’s playtesters, and he has been seeking information about Skull and Bones. Last month, he claimed that the game hasn’t made the changes necessary to make it successful, much less justify its $ 70 pricetag.
Today, Tom’s website Insider Gaming claims that those playtesters have not yet played this new secret build of Skull and Bones yet. It also isn’t clear why they haven’t started work, i.e., testing, for this game.
Was Duguet just telling a story? But in the context of a financial report, a high profile Ubisoft executive like Duguet isn’t likely to use marketing spin to convince investors the same way they would gamers. Believe me, there was a huge chance nobody would have caught this quote from him.
Skull and Bones will be released on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Amazon Luna, and Windows, reportedly for 2023. Oddly enough, the Steam listing is gone, though it is still present on Epic Games Store and Ubisoft’s own Ubisoft Connect client.
There’s still a lot of strange things going on with Skull and Bones, so keep following GameRanx for the latest updates.
