Ubisoft’s Pirate Game ‘Skull & Bones’ Finally Has A Release Date And Some New Gameplay

Avast ye landlubbers! Ubisoft just dropped two trailers and a 2022 release date for Skull And Bones, a game that’s been in development for so long with so few updates that I wasn’t even sure it was ever going to come out.

I actually played a much, much earlier version of this game at E3 a few years ago (I think it was 2017) and it was just big multiplayer ship battles that were a little ungainly and not terribly fun. I’m glad to see that the game has changed so entirely into what now appears to be a spinoff of Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag—still one of my very favorites in the series, though barely an Assassin’s Creed game.

This has all the trappings of Assassin’s Creed minus the land combat and Assassins vs Templar story. There is no modern day stuff, either. This is straight-up pirate adventuring.

There’s crafting, hunting, trading and tending to your crew. You can attack other ships, raid bases and forts and team up with friends to play multiplayer on the high seas. It looks pretty good with lots of customization options. I’m not sure exactly how Ubisoft plans to get us to part with our hard-earned cash after purchasing it, but I’m sure there will be all sorts of things for sale in the shop. This is Ubisoft, after all.

The game sets sail on November 8th, 2022, which is much sooner than I expected. Though I suppose I had no expectations at all!

The game’s co-op can be played with up to two other friends, and players can also turn on PvP if they want and “test their iron against aspiring kingpins, powerful organizations, local factions, or even rival pirates” according to Ubisoft.

The publisher also notes that the game has a multi-year post-launch release plan with oodles of free content for all players.

Curiously, Skull And Bones will only be available on current-gen platforms. It’s releasing on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC (via the Epic Game Store and Ubisoft Store) as well as on Stadia and Amazon Luna. That’s interesting given this game’s development began long before current-gen systems were even announced. But it’s probably for the best, not bogged down by older hardware.

Ubisoft released two trailers today. The first is just a cinematic that tells us next to nothing about the game.

Cinematic Trailer

The second trailer actually goes into quite a lot of detail about the gameplay, which is useful. It honestly looks nothing at all like the game I played back at E3. It looks a lot deeper and more interesting, and as I said before, very much like Black Flag without the AC stuff.

Gameplay Overview

Be sure to check out my list of games that I’m most looking forward to playing for the rest of 2022 over at my Substack. Thanks for stopping by!