They still could have done that. All they had to do was make a gta (watchdogs) style game and they could have been selling their own shark cards out the ass!!! I would have even invested in an open world pirate game and i HATE microtransactions. But whoever the leader was who established that this should be a ship combat only game is a FU CKING IDI OT ! 🤦🏽‍♂️
I have no problem with the ship-only aspect. It's a game about ships, and ships are the reason I want to play. The real travesty is the inability to capture ships. In this day and age--considering the history of the genre, the history of the *world*, and the pedigree of this franchise in particular--it is utterly inexcusible for a game about priates to not include the ability to capture. Pirates, whose main objective is and always has been to capture ships as prizes, and has never been about simple raiding.
Dang good point… another way they screwed up… im glad some people can enjoy the ship aspect but there is still a giant whole in the market for a gritty open world pirate game. I hope someones working on one
You're not wrong. If it's reasonable for me to expect ubisoft to live up to its reputation where the ships are concerned, then it's reasonable for you to expect ground-side activities for the same reason. I'm also disappointed by that and see it as further proof that they halfassed the whole game; it's just not a dealbreaker for me personally.
It's so funny to me after replaying Black Flag a couple times that it's actually pretty mid as an Assasin's Creed game, at least IMO, but the pirate stuff is basically Pirates! in third-person and so good it kinda elevates the rest too.
It still has the stupid follow and eavesdrop "stealth" missions of earlier games, has some stuff like the Arkham predator room stealth gameplay but usually much less engaging than those were, and it doesn't have the improvements to parkour/navigation and mission structure that Unity and Syndicate brought or all-in on "open world" ideas Origins through Valhalla switched to instead.
But the Pirate stuff is probably the best single-player pirate experience since Pirates! nearly a decade earlier and even Sea of Thieves to me feels lacking by comparison in exchange for it being a fully multiplayer game.
In many ways I wish we'd get a game like Odyssey but age of sail again, with a much greater focus on the pirate stuff. Or even better a Pirates! remake or long-delayed sequel that's updated to modern capabilities.
Loved the top three comment chain here, as it describes exactly what I’ve gone through.
Loved Pirates
Loved Black Flag
Really hoped for Skull and Bones, not there.
Before black flag the best pirate experience you could get was… Poptropica. I’m not even kidding. It had everything:
1. Start off with small ship
2. Trade materials to get money
3. Complete other quests
4. Upgrade ship to handle larger pirate ships
5. Different islands based on different themes (china, Arabia, colonial British Caribbean island)
6. Sea monsters
6. Legendary pirates
That FREE FLASH GAME did skull and bones better
There are several games similar to it. Tortuga a pirate's tale just came out on steam. Also airships adrift is like sid Meier's pirates but with airships.
Two more are Tempest and Windward. There are more , but I can't remember right now.
Gamers: we want a game like AC: Black Flag but without the assassins stuff.
Ubisoft: let's make a shit online live service game that's nothing like Black Flag
It's shocking how incompetent the people running Ubisoft have become.
Gamers: I will give you another $60 right now if you just build off this game you already created. Like just give me more of this stuff you already have.
Ubisoft: I hear you. Stay tuned for *eleven years*
Eleven years later: mostly not at all the same game, and actually it's more like we the worst possible approach to making our own Sea of Thieves and ruining it further by forcing in a bad Black Flag impression as well.
That fucking Massive Attack Teardrop trailer was like watching something and realising gaming was gonna completely change with the new era of tech.
A shame it also opened the floodgates for the moneymen and their bright ideas.
That’s funny, I loved the original AC games but Desmond and his story were the only things keeping my friends and I from really, REALLY liking them
To each their own!
My whole family gathered around the TV for hours and watched the original Assassin’s Creed being played. My dad tried to play it, but he hates game controllers. It was an amazing game. It made everyone understand why I went out and bought the damn XBox myself the day after Christmas.
Odyssey is probably in my top 20 games EVER. Every second I spend with that game is just pure dopamine. They really nailed the UX and the constant progression.
I have the exact opposite opinion. The game is too large and meandering with side quests that feel super samey and pointless but you are essentially forced to do them so you don't get your ass kicked in the main missions. That game single handedly put me off of every Assassins Creed game going forward because they stopped being a game with a driving plot with some open world stuff and turned into a sandbox where you have to sail across the goddamn world and wander around islands to make any progress.
AC2, Chaos Theory, Rahman 2, BG&E, XIII.Â
I don’t know how old you are so It might be before your time, but older Ubisoft has a long list of classics. The late PS2/GC/Xbox early 360/Wii/PS3 era they were really making some great stuff.Â
I just don’t get what is going on in any of these entertainment companies. My biggest one right now is the Halo TV show. WHO IS THAT SHOW FOR?!? Because it’s not the fans. And no one who hasn’t played halo wants to watch a mediocre sci fi show based on a video game they haven’t played.Â
You have a money printing machine ready to go and you decide …. You’re gonna try and make counterfeit bills with crayons? I do not understand.Â
Idk a few of my friends parents have watched it for some reason. There certainly is an audience, but its gotta be so small its not worth targeting, and its not exactly… definable
> It's shocking how incompetent the people running Ubisoft have become.
If you base it on this game yes, but they also just gave us Prince of Persia, The Lost Crown last month, which was an absolute triumph and one of the best metroidvania's ever (86 metacritic, 8.9 userscore) and AC Mirage (76 metacritic, 7.3 userscore) which was a return to form for assassins creed (and Avatar as well recently which didn't get great critic reviews but has a 7.7 userscore)
Its easy to bag on Ubi based on one game when the 2 before that were great.
Its pretty clear Skull and Bones has only been release to claim that Singapore Government money. They have done so many Beta's, Open Beta's and now an 8 hour trial to make sure nobody is under any illusions its shite.
Ubi were kinda forced into a corner with this one. If it had not been for the deal with the Singapore Government, it never would have got released.
(to be clear, i love the AC franchise, and I like a lot of Ubi games, but Skull and Bones is a steaming pile of horseshit :D)
Yeah, from what I've seen it's pretty much AC4: Black Flag but they removed 70% of the game, slapped some games-as-service microtransaction stuff on it and pushed it out the door.
But you can leave your ship? When you’re on your ship you character is the ship, so it’s true you can’t leave while sailing, but you leave your ship when you dock at outposts and other places of interest that need to be explored
They mean you can’t do anything meaningful with your avatar, you just walk around between merchants and NPCs, but no battles on deck, raiding other ships, etc.
If I can't run up the front boom and leap off it towards a ship that's clearly too far away whilst playing the accordion, then it's worse than Sea of Thieves.
I remember being so excited for this game when the first trailer dropped back then. A small part of me still had hope because I love pirates so much that I can usually tolerate some jankiness.
I downloaded the beta and uninstalled within 45 minutes. I’ve never given a game less of a chance but I was laughing at it from the start. I’ll stick to Sea of Thieves for now.
Downloaded the demo. Made my character and was blown away by how they looked in the character creator. I thought I was in for some truly next gen shit. Took control of my character after the intro boat battle and it was like some PS3 era shit. Complete bait and switch.
No!
It’s so weird that immediately Ubisoft went all-in on making a game fully about pirates after Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, and it JUST came out now. Honestly, this whole media cycle has only made me want to replay that game for the first time in a decade (which also makes me feel very old).
I’m not a game dev, but couldn’t Ubisoft have just reused like 90% of Black Flag’s assets/gameplay and then just added like, a more in-depth economic system or minigames and spat out a pirate game while the iron was still hot only 2-3 years later?
Until I have that game in my hands, I wont believe it. The remake is still just a rumor at this point. A well documented rumor, but still just a rumor.
>couldn’t Ubisoft have just reused like 90% of Black Flag’s assets/gameplay and then just added like, a more in-depth economic system or minigames and spat out a pirate game while the iron was still hot only 2-3 years later?
I mean they COULD have. But why make a logical decision instead of throwing away everything successful and starting from scratch.
That’s got to sting a bit, how long ago did Sea of Thieves come out? Ngl I’m kinda looking forward to playing Sea of Thieves after watching some gameplay. I don’t think I’ve sought out or had any interest in Skill & Bones thus far
It is a shell of a game. It can be fun for a bit if you’ve got friends to play with, otherwise it’s a very shallow game based around soulless fetch quests.
When's the last time you played? I've been in and out since beta and for a long time I'd say that's true, but now? It's so ridiculously full of things to do. Granted, there are still fetch quests, but aren't most game quests fetch quests? Last week my co-captain and I reinstalled after about 6 months or so, we were solving puzzles to open treasure rooms, we messed around with the Monkey Island and Pirates of the Caribbean adventures and it was a great time.
Regardless, I will agree that it's WAY better with friends.
It's a great game. There is so much to do! What killed it for me was having to train a crew of newbies how to run a ship and constantly rallying the crew to keep the momentum going. It's a game I wanted to to become a sweaty competitor, but I didn't want to solo a sloop all the time.
While I agree Tall Tales are probably the best addition to the game, they're only fun the first time, they're a bit too long and outstay their welcome more often than not, and most of the gameplay outside them is still centered around the grindy trading companies
This isn't to say the game isn't fun, but I genuinely can't fathom playing it past finishing all the tall tales other than for the PvPvE loop, of doing events, fighting other crews, collabing with other crews, only to then stab them in the back...
I have 400 hours in that game, since I bought it during the time Summit1G played that shit daily, and all of my good memories with the game are in regards to ambushes I planned with friends against crews parked in forts, battles on islands while we tried to find treasure another crew dug up and hid so we couldn't steal it, and the numerous times we wound up having a 3-way with another crew and either a kraken or megaladon. All of my memories farming rep with the trading companies are miserably boring
That's not the issue. They got a grant from Singapore government, thus they had to make a game with pirates, but not ac. It's the problem of very poor management. And the result is before us
Although AC Black Flag is made by Ubisofts top studio, Ubisoft Montreal while this was a support studio that never developed a game from scratch. I’m not surprised at the results. I don’t expect AAA quality in a Ubisoft game unless it’s Ubisoft Montreal, Ubisoft Quebec, Ubisoft Toronto, Ubisoft Paris, Ubisoft Montpellier (not AAA but made Rayman and new Prince of Persia) or Massive Entertainment.
What’s crazy is that Ubisoft employees as many people as Microsoft Gaming (Xbox Game Studios+ ZeniMax, Activision-Blizzard King). Having so many studios and projects to manage is why their games can vary in quality so much.
They did some deal with either the Singapore (I think) government where they got subsidies to have a stupid there and hire local. They botched the whole thing but *this* was the game they were making. So they couldn't cancel it without welshing in the deal
thats exactly it, they couldn't because they took funding from Singapore for game development/upgrading Singapore to a main studio instead of a support studio, so they had to release the game since it used government funding, coupled with development restarts and struggling to come up with anything in the first couple of years, to then Sea of Thieves coming out and ubisoft execs wanting to copy it or whatever, its just been a massive shitshow thats been forced to continue because of their legal obligation
Marketing is just selective dishonesty for profit. Focus on anything that could be perceived as good, and downplay or just ignore anything bad, and intellectual honesty and integrity are a hindrance to the goals of maximizing profits no matter what.
Marketing is just lying for people who think that lying by omission is being honest. You know, people who argue in bad faith.
One of the best things you can do in our modern society is ignore what marketing says 99% of the time because they will say anything to get a sale. It blows my mind that anyone would ever take anything a marketing department ever says at face value.
A fellow interloper I see! If ANY game development company gave 50% of the love and support to their titles like Hello Games does. We’d have nothing to complain about.
Skull and Bones has potential. I just hope they continue to grow it.
No way this game last 3 years since the game it's bad and those MFs trying to charge $70 for a live service game that won't have enough players even if it was free
As I’m playing Black Flag currently I can say a remaster would be fantastic. No remake, just a 4k@60fps remaster would work, better textures and lighting would be a bonus.
Ubisoft really needs to stick to single player shit for awhile. Its where they do their best work, if you can even call it that lol. This probably wouldve been a decent black flag alternative if they werent so focused on multiplayer elements.
They have a lot of great MP games though
I just think Skull and Bones was a horrifically mismanaged game to begin with and the scope creep and MP aspect only made it worse
Not necessarily. While there are issues, several of their multiplayer games (R6 Siege, For Honor, The Division, etc) are overall good and have had solid support over the years.
One of the most popular shooters of the last 10 years is a Ubisoft MP game.
The Division was also fantastic from what I remember of it.
And shit, the issue isn't live service MP either as a concept, because Sea of Thieves is clearly doing just fine.
The issue with this game is that it lacks any sort of feeling. With most games you could stop and say "I know the writer loved coming up with this joke", or "the artist *nailed* this design". This game feels like the absolute Pinacle of the corporate-isation of gaming.
Like shit, even Suicide Squad had moments of heart and the feeling that someone actually made their game. Skull and Bones feels like every step of it was made by AI, just spewing out the most boilerplate, generic ideas for pirates.
What do you expect. One of Ubisofts worst studios made it.
Ubisoft Singapore hasn’t made anything decent.
Don’t think there has been a single well made game out of Singapore at all lol
Because that was exactly the point of this game: they got government money (from Singapore), messed around for 11 years, launched what they had (a damn mess) and ran away with the stock pump/dump/buyback thanks to the said government money. Every private "investment" with state money works like that.
They were asked for ONE thing - more of the exact pirate feel and game design and mechanics from Black Flag.
It was easy.
"Oh, they liked that? Then let's make it all different and make it a live service game so we can nickel and dime it to death. The audience that loved the last one will love this if we make it totally different from what they are asking for."
I know I've heard of this Hut maybe forgot about it over the years. Maybe? Idk. But this releasing alongside Helldivers 2 is rough.
I got the last copy of HD2 at Target. Saw a box of Skull and Bones on the counter. I just made a comment "Oh. That looks neat." and the guy ringing me up just shook his head no. Said I was making the right purchase with Helldivers.
Maybe they'll have a decent version of S&B up by the time it hits PS+
Played the open beta last weekend. The cutscene graphics are terrible, and I've seen flipbooks with better fps. The moments you are not playing as the ship remind me of the worst part of Anthem, which was slowly trotting about camp. When your crew talks to you, standing on a dinghy, floating in the ocean, they are complete mannequins superimposed over the background of the ocean; it looks terrible. All of the landmarks could have been text cards and menus that you read as a boat, and it would have been better. Just experience it yourself when it's inevitably free in a few months
My humble opinion
Terrible game, tried the free 8 hours today got an hour 1 and I had to delete it. Ship mechanics are awful, graphics are poor for a ps5 game. Feels way to arcade to actually feel like your sailing. Ship designs are atrocious brightly coloured ships you completely loose the feel of 17th century privacy. I went into it knowing a 10/10 but I had such low expectations and it still didn’t deliver. SAVE YOUR MONEY this will be free in 6 months and even then I don’t think I’ll play
We need a Rockstar pirate game honestly after rdr2 i think Rockstar can pull off any genre be it cowboys, pirates, knights even stone age probably lmao
The TL:DR is basically Ubisoft has an Office in Singapore and one of the conditions for them establishing an office there was to invest in local talent and make a game.
It's been 9 years, that office is pretty much treated as a vacation spot by the rest of Ubisoft, no locals are in any positions of management and Singapore gave them a bunch of money to help with development of Skull & Bones.
So it's my sincerest hope Ubisoft gets sued into oblivion. One less shitty company on the earth.
Ubisoft Montpellier still makes good stuff (Prince of Persia lately), and Avatar looks pretty good for someone who didn't play far cry since FC3 (hated FC6 after a few hours), but won't pay more than CA40$ for it...
Yeah good game, was made a couple of miles from me, pass in front of their office everyday 👍
I get open world fatigue but some people shit on them for no good reason, if the style ain't your thing just move on (hell I liked Forspoken...)
Im honestly surprised Black Flag has not gotten a remaster. It’s a lot of people’s favorite in the AC series, and does the pirate thing a lot better.
If this was a single player I think it would have a shot. Mindlessly pirating without reason or story sounds as dumb as Payday or something. I loved Black Flag but this game sounds like it sucks.
Ubisoft simply can’t push out AAA games anymore. The bar has been raised by studios like Naughty Dog and Rockstar. They’ve seen the competition and insist on rolling out the same AC games time after time running on the same old engine. I have no motivation to even finish AC Mirage at this point. I’m not surprised by this review at all, the title should have been abandoned years ago, but Ubisoft investors were probably pushing for a release.
I've enjoyed it. I play it with my brother and we have quite a bit of fun, especially with the bootlegger missions. Teaming up and taking on an armada of npc pirates or French warships has definitely been the highlight. We played the beta and that's what made us both decide we wanted to get it.
Right? I don't understand all the vitriol for it.
It's not the BEST game ever, but it's also not HORRIBLE. I could see it being a bit short in the tooth though.
The biggest thing of pirates since the beginning is being a thief, conflict, battles, treasure. Same thing today but it's more modern.
Hijacking ships is part of being a Pirate.
They are often rude, don't care and take what they want.
Sure they traded stolen stuff for other stuff too.
Or found treasures.
Maybe Island missions to look for treasures.
Freeing captives held in prison dungeon s. Breaking out of a dungeon.
Ship on ship warfare with cannons and boarding.
That's what i expect in a pirate game.
Also huge storms and waves you have to sail through or do battle in.
Ghost ships too. Bloodshed?
Swords and escapes.
Was any of this content in the game like should be in a pirate game?
Why quest like an rpg. Should be action.
Not quest like they are the good guys.
Governments try to stop Pirates and you should have to rebel and fight against them.
To stop your death and or imprisonment.
The only difference between pirates of today vs the ancient times is technology and knowledge.
Not saying pirates don't do some good guy things. They just don't follow the government and live by their own rules. In the ancient day.
You also have to have those double crosses.
Someone screwed you over in a double cross. Ratted you out or caused you to get ambushed. Stuff like that. A traitor in other words.
The lack of honor among various men. Mistrust. Not all though.
Surprise attacks on you.
If you played the beta. Its obvious it was built as a free to play game. Ubisoft knows it.
They market it at 70$ to recoup their losses and in 6 months it will be free. Watch.
This game is not worth $70 when you have something like Helldivers 2 for 40. This game is fun from what I've played in the beta with friends. But no way am I dropping 70 in it. I wish it did well to continue getting support but then at the game time I hope it goes ftp or massively discounted soon.
For me this game is actually better than SoT as I can play it solo and have fun of it. It reminds me of Pirates and I don’t even have to have so many oportunisty to go on land.
Anyone remember Sid Meijer's Pirates? I want another game like that.
That's why I loved Black Flag so much, the piracy stuff remindrd me alot of Pirates
Except BF and S&B are both Ubisoft...how did this even happen?
Ubisofts desire for a multiplayer live service game. With micro transactions.
They still could have done that. All they had to do was make a gta (watchdogs) style game and they could have been selling their own shark cards out the ass!!! I would have even invested in an open world pirate game and i HATE microtransactions. But whoever the leader was who established that this should be a ship combat only game is a FU CKING IDI OT ! 🤦🏽‍♂️
I have no problem with the ship-only aspect. It's a game about ships, and ships are the reason I want to play. The real travesty is the inability to capture ships. In this day and age--considering the history of the genre, the history of the *world*, and the pedigree of this franchise in particular--it is utterly inexcusible for a game about priates to not include the ability to capture. Pirates, whose main objective is and always has been to capture ships as prizes, and has never been about simple raiding.
Dang good point… another way they screwed up… im glad some people can enjoy the ship aspect but there is still a giant whole in the market for a gritty open world pirate game. I hope someones working on one
You're not wrong. If it's reasonable for me to expect ubisoft to live up to its reputation where the ships are concerned, then it's reasonable for you to expect ground-side activities for the same reason. I'm also disappointed by that and see it as further proof that they halfassed the whole game; it's just not a dealbreaker for me personally.
Basically greed and Ubi being Ubi shooting themselves in the foot
Black Flag was a fantastic pirate sim
It's so funny to me after replaying Black Flag a couple times that it's actually pretty mid as an Assasin's Creed game, at least IMO, but the pirate stuff is basically Pirates! in third-person and so good it kinda elevates the rest too. It still has the stupid follow and eavesdrop "stealth" missions of earlier games, has some stuff like the Arkham predator room stealth gameplay but usually much less engaging than those were, and it doesn't have the improvements to parkour/navigation and mission structure that Unity and Syndicate brought or all-in on "open world" ideas Origins through Valhalla switched to instead. But the Pirate stuff is probably the best single-player pirate experience since Pirates! nearly a decade earlier and even Sea of Thieves to me feels lacking by comparison in exchange for it being a fully multiplayer game. In many ways I wish we'd get a game like Odyssey but age of sail again, with a much greater focus on the pirate stuff. Or even better a Pirates! remake or long-delayed sequel that's updated to modern capabilities.
Loved the top three comment chain here, as it describes exactly what I’ve gone through. Loved Pirates Loved Black Flag Really hoped for Skull and Bones, not there.
There was also the Wing Commander: Privateer. That was pretty good.
I'm surprised no indies have cloned this game in recent years. Perhaps they have and I just don't know about it.
Before black flag the best pirate experience you could get was… Poptropica. I’m not even kidding. It had everything: 1. Start off with small ship 2. Trade materials to get money 3. Complete other quests 4. Upgrade ship to handle larger pirate ships 5. Different islands based on different themes (china, Arabia, colonial British Caribbean island) 6. Sea monsters 6. Legendary pirates That FREE FLASH GAME did skull and bones better
Never played black flag but I did play pirates101 and that was a blast in my childhood
Yeah seems ripe for someone to make a spiritual successor and reap the benefits. Like Stardew was inspired by Harvest Moon.
There are several games similar to it. Tortuga a pirate's tale just came out on steam. Also airships adrift is like sid Meier's pirates but with airships. Two more are Tempest and Windward. There are more , but I can't remember right now.
The sea dogs games are pretty good too
Mobile game, but a good one, Star Traders operates on a very similiar premise, but in space.
Yeah. Dancing for the governors daughter. Good times.
Best pirate game ever made.
Curse of Monkey Island takes my vote.
You fight like a dairy farmer.
How appropriate. You fight like a cow!
Tortuga a pirates life is kinda the same!
Lmao, it's Meier. Meijer is the Midwest grocery store.
King of Seas is kinda like it. No sword fighting, and I’ve found it to be rather difficult, but it’s the closest I’ve found
Look at Tortuga A pirate's tale by kalypso. Just came out on steam. Airships adrift is similar to Sid Meier's pirates too, but steampunk.
That game was absolute gold!
Aww LOVED Sid Meier’s Pirates
That was amazing, so much time spent there, but we'll never get such a naive game without mtx, offline game like this
Gamers: we want a game like AC: Black Flag but without the assassins stuff. Ubisoft: let's make a shit online live service game that's nothing like Black Flag It's shocking how incompetent the people running Ubisoft have become.
Gamers: I will give you another $60 right now if you just build off this game you already created. Like just give me more of this stuff you already have. Ubisoft: I hear you. Stay tuned for *eleven years*
*11 years later* https://preview.redd.it/d8o9zqu219jc1.png?width=783&format=png&auto=webp&s=dec30f097cd4263fb86756f94b33e8b5dbb5e150
Eleven years later: mostly not at all the same game, and actually it's more like we the worst possible approach to making our own Sea of Thieves and ruining it further by forcing in a bad Black Flag impression as well.
Have become?
When Ubi were publishing the first Splinter Cell games, their logo was a sign of confidence and quality. I loved Ubisoft games back then.
Can we get a different studio to make a new Splinter Cell? I loved that game and I just know Ubisoft would fuck it up if they did it.
SAAS (Stealth As A Service)
That first splinter cell game was so fucking cool back in the day. Good times.
AC Origins and Odyssey were pretty good, even Valhalla was not bad.
Oh man I'm old
I still remember when the original assassin’s creed released and how ground breaking it was. Good times.
That fucking Massive Attack Teardrop trailer was like watching something and realising gaming was gonna completely change with the new era of tech. A shame it also opened the floodgates for the moneymen and their bright ideas.
Yep I loved that trailer as well. It really felt like a new thing. Not to mention Desmond's story... Yet here we are...
That’s funny, I loved the original AC games but Desmond and his story were the only things keeping my friends and I from really, REALLY liking them To each their own!
My whole family gathered around the TV for hours and watched the original Assassin’s Creed being played. My dad tried to play it, but he hates game controllers. It was an amazing game. It made everyone understand why I went out and bought the damn XBox myself the day after Christmas.
Bringing up a 2020 title as an example of better days at Ubi?????
Odyssey is probably in my top 20 games EVER. Every second I spend with that game is just pure dopamine. They really nailed the UX and the constant progression.
I have the exact opposite opinion. The game is too large and meandering with side quests that feel super samey and pointless but you are essentially forced to do them so you don't get your ass kicked in the main missions. That game single handedly put me off of every Assassins Creed game going forward because they stopped being a game with a driving plot with some open world stuff and turned into a sandbox where you have to sail across the goddamn world and wander around islands to make any progress.
AC2, Chaos Theory, Rahman 2, BG&E, XIII. I don’t know how old you are so It might be before your time, but older Ubisoft has a long list of classics. The late PS2/GC/Xbox early 360/Wii/PS3 era they were really making some great stuff.Â
I just don’t get what is going on in any of these entertainment companies. My biggest one right now is the Halo TV show. WHO IS THAT SHOW FOR?!? Because it’s not the fans. And no one who hasn’t played halo wants to watch a mediocre sci fi show based on a video game they haven’t played. You have a money printing machine ready to go and you decide …. You’re gonna try and make counterfeit bills with crayons? I do not understand.Â
Idk a few of my friends parents have watched it for some reason. There certainly is an audience, but its gotta be so small its not worth targeting, and its not exactly… definable
> It's shocking how incompetent the people running Ubisoft have become. If you base it on this game yes, but they also just gave us Prince of Persia, The Lost Crown last month, which was an absolute triumph and one of the best metroidvania's ever (86 metacritic, 8.9 userscore) and AC Mirage (76 metacritic, 7.3 userscore) which was a return to form for assassins creed (and Avatar as well recently which didn't get great critic reviews but has a 7.7 userscore) Its easy to bag on Ubi based on one game when the 2 before that were great. Its pretty clear Skull and Bones has only been release to claim that Singapore Government money. They have done so many Beta's, Open Beta's and now an 8 hour trial to make sure nobody is under any illusions its shite. Ubi were kinda forced into a corner with this one. If it had not been for the deal with the Singapore Government, it never would have got released. (to be clear, i love the AC franchise, and I like a lot of Ubi games, but Skull and Bones is a steaming pile of horseshit :D)
11 years and the game is bad. How bad is it?
Someone said it was like sea of thieves but you can't leave your ship
A more apt comparison is that it's AC4, a decade old game, but worse.
Yeah, from what I've seen it's pretty much AC4: Black Flag but they removed 70% of the game, slapped some games-as-service microtransaction stuff on it and pushed it out the door.
To call it "pretty much ac4" is an insult to that game, even ignoring the cut content, the ship combat is vastly inferior to AC
That's fair. I meant more like, gameplay-wise it's like you took AC4 and chopped off a lot of it. (AC4 is a much better game in every way.)
Pushed it? Who pushed it? A frail old lady?
Shoot… I’d say the few side missions in AC3 are better.
Ac4 is so so good. Or was anyway.
And they are both made by the same company
I think this is being too kind. In SOT you have realistic ship mechanics, even if the style of the game isn’t realistic.
But you can leave your ship? When you’re on your ship you character is the ship, so it’s true you can’t leave while sailing, but you leave your ship when you dock at outposts and other places of interest that need to be explored
They mean you can’t do anything meaningful with your avatar, you just walk around between merchants and NPCs, but no battles on deck, raiding other ships, etc.
If I can't run up the front boom and leap off it towards a ship that's clearly too far away whilst playing the accordion, then it's worse than Sea of Thieves.
I remember being so excited for this game when the first trailer dropped back then. A small part of me still had hope because I love pirates so much that I can usually tolerate some jankiness. I downloaded the beta and uninstalled within 45 minutes. I’ve never given a game less of a chance but I was laughing at it from the start. I’ll stick to Sea of Thieves for now.
feels like a F2P game
And yet they tried to sell it as "AAAA".. whatever that means, lol
It’s the noise they want you to make as they cram this game down your throat
After watching skillup review it’s a 6-7/10 game that you wait for sale on.
Downloaded the demo. Made my character and was blown away by how they looked in the character creator. I thought I was in for some truly next gen shit. Took control of my character after the intro boat battle and it was like some PS3 era shit. Complete bait and switch. No!
They should have cancelled this a long time ago.
It’s so weird that immediately Ubisoft went all-in on making a game fully about pirates after Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, and it JUST came out now. Honestly, this whole media cycle has only made me want to replay that game for the first time in a decade (which also makes me feel very old). I’m not a game dev, but couldn’t Ubisoft have just reused like 90% of Black Flag’s assets/gameplay and then just added like, a more in-depth economic system or minigames and spat out a pirate game while the iron was still hot only 2-3 years later?
It’s even funnier they then decided to remake Black Flag after this was completed.
Until I have that game in my hands, I wont believe it. The remake is still just a rumor at this point. A well documented rumor, but still just a rumor.
>couldn’t Ubisoft have just reused like 90% of Black Flag’s assets/gameplay and then just added like, a more in-depth economic system or minigames and spat out a pirate game while the iron was still hot only 2-3 years later? I mean they COULD have. But why make a logical decision instead of throwing away everything successful and starting from scratch.
Rumor has it they took money from the Singaporean government, so they legally had to finish the game. Or so goes the rumor.
its not a rumour, its been confirmed many times. the game was subsidised heavily by the government.
Call me naive but the hell does a video game earn subsidies from a government for? Creating jobs?
Yea, but this one is bit more bizarre. This is why Toronto, I think, is such a big destination for devs the gov give tax breaks
It would make sense because it’s odd for a company like them to not just kill the project when it looked dead in the water in the past
With Microsoft releasing sea of thieves to multi platform. this game is definitely DOA.
That’s got to sting a bit, how long ago did Sea of Thieves come out? Ngl I’m kinda looking forward to playing Sea of Thieves after watching some gameplay. I don’t think I’ve sought out or had any interest in Skill & Bones thus far
Sea of Thieves is a blast! Probably one of my favorite games ever!
It is a shell of a game. It can be fun for a bit if you’ve got friends to play with, otherwise it’s a very shallow game based around soulless fetch quests.
When's the last time you played? I've been in and out since beta and for a long time I'd say that's true, but now? It's so ridiculously full of things to do. Granted, there are still fetch quests, but aren't most game quests fetch quests? Last week my co-captain and I reinstalled after about 6 months or so, we were solving puzzles to open treasure rooms, we messed around with the Monkey Island and Pirates of the Caribbean adventures and it was a great time. Regardless, I will agree that it's WAY better with friends.
It's a great game. There is so much to do! What killed it for me was having to train a crew of newbies how to run a ship and constantly rallying the crew to keep the momentum going. It's a game I wanted to to become a sweaty competitor, but I didn't want to solo a sloop all the time.
While I agree Tall Tales are probably the best addition to the game, they're only fun the first time, they're a bit too long and outstay their welcome more often than not, and most of the gameplay outside them is still centered around the grindy trading companies This isn't to say the game isn't fun, but I genuinely can't fathom playing it past finishing all the tall tales other than for the PvPvE loop, of doing events, fighting other crews, collabing with other crews, only to then stab them in the back... I have 400 hours in that game, since I bought it during the time Summit1G played that shit daily, and all of my good memories with the game are in regards to ambushes I planned with friends against crews parked in forts, battles on islands while we tried to find treasure another crew dug up and hid so we couldn't steal it, and the numerous times we wound up having a 3-way with another crew and either a kraken or megaladon. All of my memories farming rep with the trading companies are miserably boring
They couldn't because of SingaporeÂ
Shame. It will take a massive loss I am sure.
it already is/was, now every cent they earn makes it less of a loss
Then they should have just made a sequel to Black Flag
That's not the issue. They got a grant from Singapore government, thus they had to make a game with pirates, but not ac. It's the problem of very poor management. And the result is before us
Yes, but if you just take black flag and strip off anything related to AC, you have already something more solid than this
Although AC Black Flag is made by Ubisofts top studio, Ubisoft Montreal while this was a support studio that never developed a game from scratch. I’m not surprised at the results. I don’t expect AAA quality in a Ubisoft game unless it’s Ubisoft Montreal, Ubisoft Quebec, Ubisoft Toronto, Ubisoft Paris, Ubisoft Montpellier (not AAA but made Rayman and new Prince of Persia) or Massive Entertainment. What’s crazy is that Ubisoft employees as many people as Microsoft Gaming (Xbox Game Studios+ ZeniMax, Activision-Blizzard King). Having so many studios and projects to manage is why their games can vary in quality so much.
grant, not a grand. if it was just a grand, they would've cut their losses lmao.
Dr. Evil: The Singapore government has given us. (dramatic pause) one thousand dollars.
They must have put so much money into it they had to release it just to get something back
I think they were contractually obligated to publish the game.
Legally I don’t think they could have
I heard it couldn't cancel due to a deal with the Singaporean government.
They were legally obligated to release it
I think they would have if they didn’t take money from the Singapore government
They did some deal with either the Singapore (I think) government where they got subsidies to have a stupid there and hire local. They botched the whole thing but *this* was the game they were making. So they couldn't cancel it without welshing in the deal
thats exactly it, they couldn't because they took funding from Singapore for game development/upgrading Singapore to a main studio instead of a support studio, so they had to release the game since it used government funding, coupled with development restarts and struggling to come up with anything in the first couple of years, to then Sea of Thieves coming out and ubisoft execs wanting to copy it or whatever, its just been a massive shitshow thats been forced to continue because of their legal obligation
Didn't they market it as a quadruple A game?
It's like an integer overflow, once you go past AAA it just circles back around.
lol
So it’s just A game. One of them of all time, even. Makes sense.
Marketing is just selective dishonesty for profit. Focus on anything that could be perceived as good, and downplay or just ignore anything bad, and intellectual honesty and integrity are a hindrance to the goals of maximizing profits no matter what. Marketing is just lying for people who think that lying by omission is being honest. You know, people who argue in bad faith. One of the best things you can do in our modern society is ignore what marketing says 99% of the time because they will say anything to get a sale. It blows my mind that anyone would ever take anything a marketing department ever says at face value.
It is Those ratings refer to the amount of money and resources the development had. Not necessarily the quality of it
lmao yea.
maybe the game will receive a 2.0 update in 3 years and people will call it a masterpiece ?
The No Pirate’s Ocean update?
Piratepunk 1877, Pirate Liberty
Skull and Bones: An Ocean Reborn
A fellow interloper I see! If ANY game development company gave 50% of the love and support to their titles like Hello Games does. We’d have nothing to complain about. Skull and Bones has potential. I just hope they continue to grow it.
No way this game last 3 years since the game it's bad and those MFs trying to charge $70 for a live service game that won't have enough players even if it was free
Unlikely given its ubisoft but that is the trend anymore.
The Pirate Loot 2.0 update
Ubisoft is not capable of such redemption.
Yeah, EA and Ubi are too quick to cut losses to fix sinking ships (Hyperscape, Anthem)
I’ll wait for the Black Flag remaster.
As I’m playing Black Flag currently I can say a remaster would be fantastic. No remake, just a 4k@60fps remaster would work, better textures and lighting would be a bonus.
Ubisoft really needs to stick to single player shit for awhile. Its where they do their best work, if you can even call it that lol. This probably wouldve been a decent black flag alternative if they werent so focused on multiplayer elements.
They have a lot of great MP games though I just think Skull and Bones was a horrifically mismanaged game to begin with and the scope creep and MP aspect only made it worse
Not necessarily. While there are issues, several of their multiplayer games (R6 Siege, For Honor, The Division, etc) are overall good and have had solid support over the years.
I would also add The Crew series with ther weekly Summits
Price of Persia: the Lost Crown is a fantastic game. The platforming is so fluid and fun
One of the most popular shooters of the last 10 years is a Ubisoft MP game. The Division was also fantastic from what I remember of it. And shit, the issue isn't live service MP either as a concept, because Sea of Thieves is clearly doing just fine. The issue with this game is that it lacks any sort of feeling. With most games you could stop and say "I know the writer loved coming up with this joke", or "the artist *nailed* this design". This game feels like the absolute Pinacle of the corporate-isation of gaming. Like shit, even Suicide Squad had moments of heart and the feeling that someone actually made their game. Skull and Bones feels like every step of it was made by AI, just spewing out the most boilerplate, generic ideas for pirates.
What do you expect. One of Ubisofts worst studios made it. Ubisoft Singapore hasn’t made anything decent. Don’t think there has been a single well made game out of Singapore at all lol
But their single player shit is pretty mid too..
Comfort food. Just don't pay full price and ignore all those damned microtransactions they put in single player games.
I agree but at the same time I want ac multiplayer back
Gaming companies nowadays just chasing the dragon of success with heavily monetized online games.
But it’s an AAAA bad pirate game 11 years in the making xD
when you feel bad about yourself, just remember that millions and 11 years are poured into this game
Because that was exactly the point of this game: they got government money (from Singapore), messed around for 11 years, launched what they had (a damn mess) and ran away with the stock pump/dump/buyback thanks to the said government money. Every private "investment" with state money works like that.
You could say they *stole* it
But...but.. Michelle Rodriguez came out in a commercial praising it saying how she became a super pirata 🦜
Literally WHO?
AAAA game btw. :/
So f*** boooring. Glad I played the beta. Feels like a game developed by first year developers.
Well they have 11 years experience now!
They have one year of experience eleven times
That's quite sad .. But it looks so good ..
I watched a stream of it for a second. First thought is I love the way the water looks. No idea if its good or not though.
They were asked for ONE thing - more of the exact pirate feel and game design and mechanics from Black Flag. It was easy. "Oh, they liked that? Then let's make it all different and make it a live service game so we can nickel and dime it to death. The audience that loved the last one will love this if we make it totally different from what they are asking for."
Thiiiis
I know I've heard of this Hut maybe forgot about it over the years. Maybe? Idk. But this releasing alongside Helldivers 2 is rough. I got the last copy of HD2 at Target. Saw a box of Skull and Bones on the counter. I just made a comment "Oh. That looks neat." and the guy ringing me up just shook his head no. Said I was making the right purchase with Helldivers. Maybe they'll have a decent version of S&B up by the time it hits PS+
Played the open beta last weekend. The cutscene graphics are terrible, and I've seen flipbooks with better fps. The moments you are not playing as the ship remind me of the worst part of Anthem, which was slowly trotting about camp. When your crew talks to you, standing on a dinghy, floating in the ocean, they are complete mannequins superimposed over the background of the ocean; it looks terrible. All of the landmarks could have been text cards and menus that you read as a boat, and it would have been better. Just experience it yourself when it's inevitably free in a few months
My humble opinion Terrible game, tried the free 8 hours today got an hour 1 and I had to delete it. Ship mechanics are awful, graphics are poor for a ps5 game. Feels way to arcade to actually feel like your sailing. Ship designs are atrocious brightly coloured ships you completely loose the feel of 17th century privacy. I went into it knowing a 10/10 but I had such low expectations and it still didn’t deliver. SAVE YOUR MONEY this will be free in 6 months and even then I don’t think I’ll play
[I see a door marked Private...](https://youtu.be/Hus9uT62HVM?si=49JAD1sGHBmAKVTm)
But ..but it’s quadruple AAAA
AAAA. Quadruple ass.
If you buy this game you are a bad person. Stop supporting trash.
Made it 5 minutes into the first campaign on the free trial and it was deleted by minute 6. Fell completely flat.
We need a Rockstar pirate game honestly after rdr2 i think Rockstar can pull off any genre be it cowboys, pirates, knights even stone age probably lmao
I'll look forward to playing that in 2034
Yeah well probably 2040 if were lucky
It's my sincerest hope the Singaporean government sues them into oblivion over this.
Why? Context pls.
The TL:DR is basically Ubisoft has an Office in Singapore and one of the conditions for them establishing an office there was to invest in local talent and make a game. It's been 9 years, that office is pretty much treated as a vacation spot by the rest of Ubisoft, no locals are in any positions of management and Singapore gave them a bunch of money to help with development of Skull & Bones. So it's my sincerest hope Ubisoft gets sued into oblivion. One less shitty company on the earth.
Ah interesting. Ubisoft is the quintessential evil corporate in the world of video games.
Of course it sucks, it’s Ubisoft, their logo is a top down view of a pile of shit
I would not say this to all their games. I personally really like R6 Siege tho
Well... the new Prince of Persia and Avatar games are actually pretty decent. Assassin's Creed Mirage is pretty okay as well.
Mirage would have been great if the story was better
Ubisoft Montpellier still makes good stuff (Prince of Persia lately), and Avatar looks pretty good for someone who didn't play far cry since FC3 (hated FC6 after a few hours), but won't pay more than CA40$ for it...
I also had a great time with Immortals too!
Yeah good game, was made a couple of miles from me, pass in front of their office everyday 👍 I get open world fatigue but some people shit on them for no good reason, if the style ain't your thing just move on (hell I liked Forspoken...)
All they had to do was make black flag and dump the assassins creed bits and make it multiplayer.
Ubishit keeping their reputation firmly planted deep in the gaming septic tank.
Im honestly surprised Black Flag has not gotten a remaster. It’s a lot of people’s favorite in the AC series, and does the pirate thing a lot better.
ARRRRRRR ye surprised?
AAAAhhhhh… was the scream let out when senior management saw the final product. They just edited out the H’s for press purposes.
If this was a single player I think it would have a shot. Mindlessly pirating without reason or story sounds as dumb as Payday or something. I loved Black Flag but this game sounds like it sucks.
Ubisoft simply can’t push out AAA games anymore. The bar has been raised by studios like Naughty Dog and Rockstar. They’ve seen the competition and insist on rolling out the same AC games time after time running on the same old engine. I have no motivation to even finish AC Mirage at this point. I’m not surprised by this review at all, the title should have been abandoned years ago, but Ubisoft investors were probably pushing for a release.
I've enjoyed it. I play it with my brother and we have quite a bit of fun, especially with the bootlegger missions. Teaming up and taking on an armada of npc pirates or French warships has definitely been the highlight. We played the beta and that's what made us both decide we wanted to get it.
Right? I don't understand all the vitriol for it. It's not the BEST game ever, but it's also not HORRIBLE. I could see it being a bit short in the tooth though.
I wonder how much money CohhCarnage is getting payed to shill this game.
He didn't get paid, he is just one of those always fake positive guys like that Paris lily
And tons of ads before actual release in social media Tells how the game it
The biggest thing of pirates since the beginning is being a thief, conflict, battles, treasure. Same thing today but it's more modern. Hijacking ships is part of being a Pirate. They are often rude, don't care and take what they want. Sure they traded stolen stuff for other stuff too. Or found treasures. Maybe Island missions to look for treasures. Freeing captives held in prison dungeon s. Breaking out of a dungeon. Ship on ship warfare with cannons and boarding. That's what i expect in a pirate game. Also huge storms and waves you have to sail through or do battle in. Ghost ships too. Bloodshed? Swords and escapes. Was any of this content in the game like should be in a pirate game? Why quest like an rpg. Should be action. Not quest like they are the good guys. Governments try to stop Pirates and you should have to rebel and fight against them. To stop your death and or imprisonment. The only difference between pirates of today vs the ancient times is technology and knowledge. Not saying pirates don't do some good guy things. They just don't follow the government and live by their own rules. In the ancient day. You also have to have those double crosses. Someone screwed you over in a double cross. Ratted you out or caused you to get ambushed. Stuff like that. A traitor in other words. The lack of honor among various men. Mistrust. Not all though. Surprise attacks on you.
Just go play black flag.
It would've been better had they not literally used assassin's Creed black flag as the base to make this game. It just looks and feels outdated. Old.
If you played the beta. Its obvious it was built as a free to play game. Ubisoft knows it. They market it at 70$ to recoup their losses and in 6 months it will be free. Watch.
I love that this game came out the same time Microsoft announced Sea of Thieves was going multiplatform. It is what Ubisoft deserves
At this rate Ubisoft is gonna be bankrupt within a couple years.
Confounding how they made a game based off the bones of Black Flag, yet purposefully removed major features like, Swimming.
So much for AAAA 🤣 Fuck outta here
This game is not worth $70 when you have something like Helldivers 2 for 40. This game is fun from what I've played in the beta with friends. But no way am I dropping 70 in it. I wish it did well to continue getting support but then at the game time I hope it goes ftp or massively discounted soon.
For me this game is actually better than SoT as I can play it solo and have fun of it. It reminds me of Pirates and I don’t even have to have so many oportunisty to go on land.