Ubisoft just announced that Skull and Bones is coming to Steam.
Ubisoft made the announcement on Twitter, but the Steam page is already live, indicating a release date of August 23, 2024.
This is certainly news nobody expected, given the mountains of negative coverage that this game received. The years long wait for updates on this game’s progress was one thing. But a Kotaku report alleging mismanagement and a million dollar fiasco behind the scenes of the game’s development steered the reputation of this game in one direction.
And when the game came out, it received poor reviews, and many fans also came out of it feeling disgruntled. A lot of complaints were driven by the perceived lack of content, and a similar lack of depth in the overall game design. If you had read, or like some of us, written about this game, you would think that it would have certainly died out by now.
But Ubisoft said differently. In their latest earnings call, they credited Skull and Bones alongside XDefiant and Rainbow Six Siege as one of their Games-as-a-service titles that drove 15 % growth. Furthermore, they said this about the game in particular:
“Skull and Bones™ Season 2, Chorus of Havoc, was released on May 28, bringing improvements to the end-game formula. Engagement and ARPU continue to perform well, driven by the new battle pass and an exclusive Hellfest branded bundle.”
So let’s not get it twisted. If you think Ubisoft would lie to fans about Skull and Bones, to maybe trick gamers into playing it, they would not be able to pull that off with their investors. They told Skull and Bones is performing well, and that’s because it is.
Getting back to Ubisoft’s quote to investors, ARPU is an acronym for average revenue per user. So, even if Skull and Bones lost most of their players at launch, they have managed to gain loyalty from players who did stick around. And they’re making enough money from them that Ubisoft can call it a success.
But perhaps this is intrinsic to the nature of live service, which many gamers who don’t play that kind of game, and perhaps even some games media, fail to understand. That permanently low MetaCritic score likely no longer reflects what Skull and Bones is at this point. Live service games no longer need to have a good reputation to be successful, too.
It’s now months after launch, and we see that Skull and Bones isn’t being closed down like Capcom’s Exoprimal. Even with the negative reception, it has also survived the doomed to failure narrative that Concord currently has hanging around its neck. This pending Steam launch may not lead to bigger success, but the fact that it has gone this far already shows that Ubisoft has gained a victory of some degree, defying expectations and beating all the naysayers.
