Skull & Bones, Ubisoft’s pirate game revealed back in 2017, has been reportedly rebooted into something that more closely resembles a Sea of Thieves-style live service game.
Developed by Ubisoft Singapore, the studio that worked on Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag</b>’s naval combat, Skull & Bones was initially meant to flesh out the concept into a game of its own with PvP battles and customizable ships.
Anyone still keeping track of Skull & Bones is sure to have noticed its absence since 2018, especially since it was not featured during last Sunday’s Ubisoft Forward event, which not-so-surprisingly revealed the previously unannounced Far Cry 6.
Skull & Bones Rebooted as a Live Service Game
As website VGC reports, after a series of delays caused by the game’s inability to stand out among Ubisoft’s other open-world titles, it was rebooted last year with the intention of moving away from the premium box model used by the French publisher’s other games.
Anonymous sources told the website that the rebooted Skull & Bones has more live service elements that take inspiration from Fortnite’s approach to social and storytelling elements.
Rather than having a static world that’s periodically updated, à la The Division 2, Skull & Bones “will drastically evolve and change over time based on the collective actions of the community”.
The Skull & Bones reboot also saw a change in leadership, Creative Director Justin Farren being replaced with Elisabeth Pellen, an Ubisoft veteran who wrote and directed first-person shooter XIII and worked on level design for Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow.
Skull & Bones also counts among the games pushed to Ubisoft’s next financial year, starting in April 2021.
The move makes sense in the context of a potential reboot, as it gives developer Ubisoft Singapore more time to flesh out and polish the new systems going into this new version of its pirate game.
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