Ubisoft seems to be finally narrowing down on Skull and Bones’ release.
As reported by Insider Gaming, the company told investors in their latest earnings call that Skull and Bones is slated for Q4 FY23-24. That translates to sometime between January to March 2024.
It will be a huge relief, not only to the video game piracy fans who have been looking forward to this release, but also Ubisoft themselves. While gamers may immediately think of Ubisoft’s beleaguered upper management first, we should also acknowledge that this was a project Ubisoft Singapore worked very hard for, and that the future of the studio is tied to its success. That Skull and Bones’ release was even called into question must have been a giant weight that anchored these developers for the past few years.
We won’t go into the finer details of the reported behind the scenes turmoil of the making of Skull and Bones here. Suffice to say that Ubisoft convinced the country of Singapore to invest in this project themselves, so there is not only a legal obligation to release the game, but a lot riding on its hopeful success.
The negative narrative surrounding Skull and Bones seemed to have turned around last February, when it wasn’t Ubisoft itself, but some insiders, who claimed that Ubisoft is sitting on a highly improved build of the game. They just were not yet ready to make that build public, in spite of the prevailing negative perception.
A few months after that, Ubisoft released a new trailer and announcement of a new public beta in June. In July, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot claimed to investors that the title was doing really good progress.
We don’t really know as of right now how well Ubisoft Singapore managed to turn Skull and Bones around. But the fact that Ubisoft has now committed to a release window with investors, even if that release date can still change in the future, means that the company is certain that the game is ready to release. Hopefully, that also means they are certain enough about that release because the game has turned out well, well enough that they are now sure it will be profitable enough to meet their obligations, and maybe even exceed expectations.
Skull and Bones is planned to release between January to March 2024, on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Windows via Ubisoft Connect and Epic Games Store. As of this writing, the game is not planned for release on Steam.
