Skull & Bones & Never-ending Development

"You just don't know when to die, do you?"

The grave seems full of projects that outpaced the ambitions of their creators, the wallets of their producers, or just the patience of their investors. For every game that makes it to market there are at least 9 that fell off somewhere along the way, they usually just fall off so early that they never make it to pre-production, let alone to marketing. But I suppose if your name is Ubisoft and you make your games by recycling your previous ones, it must be pretty easy to throw yourself down a development tract too quickly and rush to the silver screen before you even know what you have. That's the only reason, at least that I can see, for Ubisoft currently being the only Modern Day company juggling 2 ludicrously delayed AAA projects that are still up for debate regarding whether they're even still alive or not. Just when you write one off and finish the eulogy, it bursts out the grave like a zombie and snatches a quick headline before sinking back into obscurity for another 12 months. Not too long ago that game was Beyond Good and Evil 2. Today it's Skull and Bones.

Skull and Bones, if the years have made you forget, was a proposition by Ubisoft: How would you like to see that comprehensive ship-combat from Assassin's Creed Black Flag wholesale lifted and dropped in a multiplayer competitive environment? (Albeit, without the disembarking and boarding which made that system so revolutionary in the first place) Now of course there are plenty out there with as-of-yet unfulfilled pirate dreams bubbling in their core and thus this game seemed somewhat destined for a cult following ever since it's first announcement. Personally I thought that, whilst the system was brilliant upon it's first reveal (which was actually Assassin's Creed III, but people forget that) it had become significantly less impressive each and every entry it appeared in, and the idea of being forced to work with it for an entire game without any normal Assassin work to distract sounded torturous. But I am a self confessed spoilsport, so I'll accept myself to be the outlier in this case. Most people want the pirate game and a pirate game they shall get. Or at least, they were supposed to get.

Even as an amateur observer with no real concept of the sorts of lengths that go into game design, how long do you think it would take to put together a game like this? Based upon systems that have already been built, in the same engine as those systems, most of the work is really going into building working net code and some newer assets and map building. Certainly it's not a game that's going to make itself by any stretch of the imagination, but you're not exactly working from scratch, now are you? With that in mind, I'd say around two years seems like the upper limit, to make something working and enjoyable. It's been four years! And that's four years since the announcement, so it probably has been worked on just a little bit before that as well. (Unless Ubisoft have gotten into the habit of publicly announcing the start of preproduction- which would actually explain a lot now I think about it.) So the question must be asked; what in the ever-loving heck is going on with this ostensibly simple game?

Well recent reports have arisen regarding the 'progress' of Skull and Bones and let's just say they've been more than a little illuminating for why this game is steadily reaching FFXV levels of delay without a modicum of the ambition to show for it. Firstly, I was right about the development reaching back further than 4 years; apparently this game has been in some form of 'development' for 8 years, and has only now hit Alpha. Secondly, Skull and Bones has fallen victim to one of the most predicable demons I can imagine all Ubisoft projects are subject to: Indecision about what the heck they were even making. What was once a Multiplayer mode for Blackflag turned into a standalone project and is know a rare unicorn across the development mythos, rivalled in legend only by that 'Lego Star Wars The Skywalker Saga' game which I've been waiting on forever. (I refuse to see episode 8 and 9 until I've played them in Lego form.)

I would think that when you're studio ethos is formed around the retreading of your own steps time and time again, the very prospect of doing something slightly out of the norm is enough to hopelessly gum the works and send teams spiralling. Not to mention that this game would have been in development around about the time that infamous wastrel we've talked about before was still in charge of greenlighting projects based on his pin-prick view of the industry trends. In that light it's actually remarkable this Multiplayer spin-off-kinda game is still in production at all, even if not entirely commendable when you think the amount of wasted work must have gone towards the several remakes the staff have had to weather. Oh yeah, the report also details several total revisions this game has undergone. (This whole thing just reads like step-by-step directions to development hell.)

Some of my favourite highlights from these the revisions was the almost philosophical question that kept team up at night, (and which undoubtedly held up development on those notes) to the tune of "Do you play the pirate or the pirate ship." (Oh, that's a brain teaser!) To which the answer should have been pretty obvious, it's a vehicle combat game thus you play as the ship, but when it comes to where the focus perspective of the game is and how customisations are crafted and sold, you can see why it's still a conversation that needed to be had. Apparently there was even one version of the game, the one that was teased in the 2018 gameplay footage, wherein there world be an exploration zone between competitive battling. But that was scrapped? Wait, hang on- that was the game which Ubisoft advertised up until now, the one they've provided no indication of having changed... then what the heck even is Skull and Bones nowadays anyway?

Teams have come and gone from the game and it seems like there's more former developers than active ones at this point, which may be why it's so easy to come across waggling tongues I suspect. At the end of the day these troubles come down to a lack of unifying vision at the heart of this project, which is what I feel like has been Ubisoft's problem for more than a decade now. They haven't made anything original because they lack anyone with the leadership and authority to helm a ship, and thus have retreated to following guidelines drawn out by a Ubisoft of the past, a Ubisoft that knew what it was doing. Still, this game has managed to hold on through a tempest of turmoil and though it lacks a release date, or any recent official news for the past two years, it's still listed on the official slate. Right next to Beyond Good and Evil 2 however, which got it's first original trailer 13 years ago; so take that for what it's worth.

Inexplicably, Ubisoft are still deadset on backing this horse, like they've put their heart and soul behind a game which, let's be honest, is pretty niche anyway. I can't imagine this game having much of a life to it in the best case scenario, unless it really takes off by the unknowable winds of internet favor, so this almost decade long development cycle almost seems doom-ridden at this point. But as one developer noted, if any other studio were involved this game would have been killed off 8 times over, and I have to agree: were I in the position I would have killed development before the first trailer. Whether through obstinate determination or, more likely, rank incompetence on the part of Ubisoft leadership, this little game has been the title that could, and now that it's finally hit Alpha I'd say chances are very good this game will actually make it to market! (I shouldn't be as shocked to say that as I am.) Now I feel, through the law of Anime underdogs, inclined to actually route for it; thus I'll be devastated when, after all this effort, the game doesn't pick up a following and shutters after one year. (I jest, that won't happen. Probably.)