Skull and Bones has extended its first season by a week, re-enabled chat, and added opt-in open world PvP, a major community request.
28.02.2024 - 19:30 / gamerant.com / Dominik Bo / Ubisoft
Ubisoft said that Skull and Bones is one of its most engaging titles to date. The company substantiated that claim by sharing the game's «record» daily playtime metric as part of the Skull and Bones Season 1 launch announcement.
Originally meant to build on the success of Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag, Ubisoft's pirate game ostensibly had a difficult task of maintaining player interest over the course of its development. That's largely because it spent 11 years in the making, having been delayed seven times. Skull and Bones was finally released for PC and current-generation PlayStation and Xbox consoles on February 16.
Skull and Bones Season 1, called Raging Tides, kicked off 11 days later. Ubisoft's announcement of the inaugural season saw the publisher reveal that the game's player base has been averaging four hours of daily playtime since launch. Going by that «record player engagement» metric, Skull and Bones is the company's second most successful game to date. As always, what the publisher isn't saying about its early performance is just as telling as the rest, if not more so; since the company didn't share any specific sales data, it is plausible that it doesn't view Skull and Bones sales figures as anything worth boasting about.
A late February report from Insider Gaming claimed that Skull and Bones had amassed approximately 850,000 lifetime players a week following its release. While that estimate is far from abysmal for a title that many gamers have long viewed as vaporware due to its numerous delays, it is also unlikely to be an accurate reflection of its sales. Namely, the reported figure has presumably been inflated by the fact that Ubisoft has been offering an 8-hour free trial of Skull and Bones from day one.
Since Ubisoft hasn't said otherwise, it's to be assumed that the 4-hour daily playtime average includes both trial players and paying customers. The figure itself does suggest that those who have been playing the game have also been enjoying it, prompting Ubisoft to disclose it in the first place. Whether the company continues sharing updates on this metric in the weeks ahead will likely be an indicator of whether Skull and Bones managed to maintain player interest throughout Season 1.
While Skull and Bones has so far failed to establish itself as a huge hit, its launch month still turned out better than that of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, which is currently averaging fewer than 1,000 daily players and has already been labeled a disappointment by Warner Bros. That notwithstanding, the relatively lackluster receptions of both titles have recently renewed calls for $70 live-service games to meet their maker.
Skull and Bones is an action-adventure title developed by Ubisoft
Skull and Bones has extended its first season by a week, re-enabled chat, and added opt-in open world PvP, a major community request.
So far, 2024 has been incredibly solid with its big AAA releases. Multiple companies like Atlus, SEGA, Capcom, and Square Enix have been dropping quality titles for gamers to enjoy. And then, there’s Ubisoft, who has been trying to spin the release of Skull and Bones into something positive. Their pirate-themed multiplayer adventure title has been in development limbo for years, and then when the beta finally released, it didn’t exactly spur people to try it out for full price. Ubisoft has been going overboard, pun intended, to sell it as a AAAA title, which many know by now to be nothing more than a puffery statement.
Ubisoft has said the recently released Skull and Bones has achieved “record player engagement” since launch, although it has yet to announce how many copies it’s sold or how many players it has.
Skull and Bones finally launched earlier this month, and though it has done quite the opposite of setting the world on fire with its critical reception, for those who’re sailing the high seas in the online pirate game, Ubisoft has released its first free season of post-launch content.
Skull and Bones, the oft-delayed pirate game from Ubisoft that finally arrived earlier this month following almost a decade of development, has released its first season of post-launch content on Xbox, PlayStation, and PC — introducing, among other things, new world events, new contracts and bounties, plus a battle-pass-style progression track.
The next seafaring video game adventure pilots its craft into the wild blue yonder, but there are stormy skies ahead. Ubisoft’s infamously delayed has finally released, with its own unsteady abstractions on playable piracy, and much of it boils down to boats and boat accessories. It's often an admittedly unique multiplayer-oriented experience with some idiosyncratic combat, but frequently falters in terms of immersion, awash in fetch quest loops and routines which struggle to fulfill the pirate power fantasy.
While Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League falls short of WB Games’ expectations, Ubisoft’s Skull and Bones isn’t doing much better. Sources speaking to Insider Gaming’s Tom Henderson report that it had around 850,000 players.
The rarest currency you can get in is Sovereigns, which only appear during the endgame portion of your adventure. Used to purchase new cosmetics for your character and ship, you need to compete with others to earn these items. However, you must reach a certain level of Infamy first before you can even consider collecting Sovereigns toward the end of your adventure.
In , a vast number of ships can be built to add to your armada, but the one that sends a shiver down your spine when you hear its name is the Pyromaniac Sambuk Ship. It is an excellent ship to hit enemies fast and hard; it is also quite challenging to get without knowing what you have to do to get it. Players must prioritize it if they want to use it as soon as possible.
allows pirating players to have more than just a simple parrot as a pet aboard their pirate ships, with parrots not even being an option at launch. This naval combat game currently only has a couple of cat or lemur animal companion options, with most of those being limited to special events. Therefore, many players are hoping that the list of available in-game pets will expand quickly. Having a pet on board a pirate ship may not be a necessity in the game, but having this option available is a fantastic feature that needs to be expanded on.
The Sunken Goldmine in is an out of the way outpost location that has a few helpful items for players to trade for. This makes it a good place to seek out, although the route to get to it might prove perilous. Players should be wary when seeking out this path, but it also could be well worth it.