I don't know rightly how to intro yet another blog detailing the never ending journey of the game that both seems to be impossible to make and at the same time simply has to be made. It's almost as though Ubisoft are pushing the game back praying that the heatdeath of the Universe saves them from commitments to the Singaporean government because they know, just was well as we do, that the only thing the release of Skull of Bones will mark is Ubisoft's most colossal failure since... perhaps ever. With the sheer amount of resources they've sunk into this and the utterly painful level of disinterest the gaming public has demonstrated in kind... yeah, this is going to be one of those legendary failures you stick up on a wall as a reminder that unlike what Anime tells us: believing in yourself is not always the answer. Sometimes you've got to fall flat on your face- to learn how to fall flat on your face again in a bigger more expensive way.
But I mean, what can Ubisoft really do at this point? What is their recourse? Imagine you have a game that no one wants from an idea that kind of sounded cool ten years ago but is becoming cliche and old hat by modern standards? The Live Service craze didn't just fade, it crashed and burned in a horrific mess. Pirates still hold some latent potential- unfortunately that potential has been gobbled up practically entirely by Sea of Thieves. (Which seems to present a more full Pirate fantasy offering anyway.) If I were calling the shots around their studio I would just cut my losses and package Skull and Bones as a package deal alongside the upcoming (Worst kept Ubisoft secret) Assassin's Creed Black Flag Remaster so that I can double-report the profits from AC4 sales as successful Skull and Bones purchases. Tie this spin off back to the game it originally branched off from all those years ago.
Because seriously; who wants to play a Pirating game where all you do is get into navel combat all day? What is swashbuckling about automatically looting ships from afar, or watching your crew have fun raiding and boarding vessels whilst you watch from the wheel and cheer them on? This has always been my problem with ship games and Mech games- I like playing as the person behind the machine, not just some embodiment of the machine itself. It's in that juxtaposition, between the vulnerable squishy human and the giant feat of engineering marvel that the impressiveness of scale and power are best realised. And in this case- I just want to get beers and dig up treasures on cool islands. Heck, why don't we also get into cool sword fights like Zorro from One Piece. And wield three katannas, one in the mouth- like Zorro from One Piece, Raiden!
I'm losing the thread. The reason why I'm even bringing this game up again is to slap my face about the fact that once again, Skull and Bones has lost it's lead. The third creative director has jumped ship to Ubisoft Paris, leaving Ubisoft Singapore in a precarious situation as after the lukewarm public opinion to their closed beta unveiled that this game still isn't what people want out of an online pirating game. I figured this was going to just spur Ubisoft to slap the game out then and there, screw patching up the Beta, and wash their hands of the thing. Now it looks like- and I'm crossing my fingers on this one- fully aware I could be shooting absolutely wide- but it kind of looks like they're going to reboot the game once again for what might be the fourth time. Either that or the creative director just doesn't want to stick around for launch- some morbid part of me prays it's the former.
Skull and Bones has become that dirty little secret that Ubisoft just wants to tuck away in their treasure hoard and shove to the back of the vault so they make way for their new and innovative future of- Assassin's Creed games forever. Heck, who remembers earlier this very year, during their conference, when Ubisoft were so done with this game that was just about to receive it's open beta that they dedicated a single awkward sea-shanty acapella performance with no gameplay footage in it's name and literally nothing else. Not a trailer, not a date, just a sing-along. In some ways I feel bad for the situation that they've found themselves plopped within. And in some other ways I know they brought it upon themselves trying to chase trends with such limited life span that they rotted before the beta was even finished.
I think the rot really lies at the very core of this ideal, which is the reason why Ubisoft is having such a hard time marketing it. It's not really a Pirate-celebrating adventure that drinks richly on the fictional promise of being a remorseless sea scourge treasure pilfering bilge rat- it's a play to secure a concurrent player base that will pump up play numbers for a few years. But I mean come on: when has that ever worked for Ubisoft? Remember that competitive shooter which bombed? No, not XDefiant, that one isn't out yet. I'm talking... gimmie a second to look it up...'Hyper Scape'! Same problem. Pretty looking game, cool movement concepts, but not built from a place of ingenuity but rather one of "Let's do a Battle Royale because they're doing gangbusters right now!" And it's true, they were- when Hyper Scape entered production. By the time it released pretty much any Battle Royale that wasn't Fortnite, Apex or COD was doomed to die a slow death- such was the case with Hyper Scape.
Chasing the leader of the pack is never going to end well for anyone- particularly the bigger you get as a creative company. The larger an organisation becomes the more steps it needs to take, the more staff it needs to manage and higher the audience expectation becomes and as a consequence to all of this- the harder it is to put out products quickly. Other big studios really have started to cotton on to the fact that to stand out they need to find a direction of the industry to excel within, be it a subgenre or a development facet- they just need to be the best at something all of their own. Ubisoft haven't managed to have that position... really ever. Their closest shot to such a height was when they were still publishing some smaller titles and put out some cracking platformers, potentially signalling them as the vangaurds of the 'return to classic platforming' movement- but they dropped the bag and the indie's picked that up. What are they now, the kings of syndication? How prestigious.
Skull and Bones is a lacklustre spectre with about as much meat on it's bones as the eponymous Jolly Rodger itself. It's cliché, underwhelming and has to struggle with a world full of regularly released masterpieces for some small modicum of an audience. And now it's possibly going to be rebooted again and you know what I say? Capitalise on the moment! Strip out the completive multiplayer trash, abandon the soul-crushing marriage to bland historic realism across the poxy Indian Ocean and embrace a totally different angle of the pirate mythos. One less serious and more... campy. But still exciting and full of adventure. Maybe with a lot of style and heart and creative wonder. Something that's hot with the public at this particular second, so Ubisoft can lend into their habit of delivering years too late... something like... Wait a second... am I suggesting that Ubisoft turn Skull and Bones into a One Piece game? Hmm...
Nah, they'd ruin it.
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