Trivia / Skull & Bones

• Contractual Obligation Project: Part of the reason why the game endured a grueling Troubled Production that would normally just result in cancellation was that Ubisoft had signed a deal with the Singaporean government pledging to develop original IP games in the country in return for tax breaks. If the game had been cancelled, the money would have to be refunded in full.
• Delayed Release Tie-In: The first issue of Skull and Bones: Savage Storm, a tie-in comic book produced by Dark Horse Comics, was released in March 2023, the same month the game was supposed to release prior to it getting delayed for a sixth time.
• Dueling Works: Less than a week before Skull & Bones released, Helldivers II, another live service title, came out and was a surprise hit, with many reviewers and news sites comparing Skull & Bones unfavorably to it.
• Saved from Development Hell: It was first announced at E3 2017 and given a release date of late 2018, but this date kept being pushed back as the game reportedly restarted development multiple times. In July 2022, the game was given a showcase and was given a new release date of November 8, 2022. However, in late September, a little over a month from release, the game was pushed back again to March 9, 2023, with Ubisoft claiming that the game needed more time to "polish and balance" the experience. In January 2023, the game was delayed yet again and pushed back to a 2023-2024 release window. In December 2023, the release date was announced as February 16, 2024, and it did indeed end up releasing on that date.
• Troubled Production: According to a Kotaku expose, Skull & Bones' eight years of development was rife with time and resource consuming set backs, with the core premise of the game changing at least four times and with development costs stated to be as high as $120 million.
  • The central reason as to why development took so long is that beyond being a multiplayer pirate game with ships, the developers couldn't decide what kind of game Skull & Bones was meant to be. Would the player play as an individual pirate captain; or as the entire ship? Is there a large overworld similar to the Assassin's Creed games; or does the game use individual sessions? Can the player do missions on land? Are crafting mechanics involved? Fundamental and foundational design like these were constantly being opened, closed and reopened, with no end in sight.
  • Part of this is due to the revolving door of senior developers. Three creative directors have taken the position, and each time a change occurred, the new managers would try and change and shift the design in their own manner.
  • Conditions at Ubisoft Singapore were also described as being poor, with management often described as being surrounded by yes-men who refused to listen to developer feedback and try to sell the Paris headquarters a vision of the game that was impractical. Many developers grew fed up with the dysfunction and lack of progress; jumping ship for better paying jobs elsewhere.
  • In normal circumstances, the game would have been cancelled outright long ago. However, Ubisoft had a special arrangement with the Singaporean government in which the studio would have significant tax credits in the country, so long as original IP games are being made there. This generosity would run out sometime by 2023, where the game would be finally be announced for a proper release in 2024, where it came out in a state missing a substantial amount of announced features, which many observed was the result of Ubisoft being unable afford to keep it going before plunging into the red. By then, Ubisoft spent around $200 million on the game's developments, and when combined with its tepid critical reception and underwhelming player numbers, they don't anticipate to break even.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Development began in 2013, originally as a multiplayer expansion for Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag before it expanded into a full online game.
  • Before settling on the Indian Ocean, the dev team spent a lot of time in the prototyping phase going back and forth on where the game should take place. At one point it was going to be set in the Caribbean, at another point it was going to be set in a supernatural world called Hyperborea. Another idea was to have the game revolve around the mythical pirate colony, Libertalia, described as being a cathedral on water.
  • The E3 2017 reveal featured a scripted multiplayer segment showcasing a PvP arena mode called "Loot Hunt" where two opposing teams of five players each would raid merchant ships and each other before fleeing the area as it became swarmed with pirate hunters, with the team who successfully escaped with the most loot winning. It was removed once the development team decided to put all their focus into building the open world.
  • Another trailer released at E3 2017 teased that a kraken-like monster would be a major part of the game. After Skull & Bones restarted development, the designers decided to remove the game's more fantastical elements in favor of making it more "grounded and realistic."
  • E3 2018 featured a scripted gameplay segment that previewed the ability for player ships to stealth through territory held by enemy NPC factions by raising sails identical to theirs, something that is absent in the final version of the game.
  • The game's logo and in-game text was originally much more stylized and detailed before the game was re-revealed in 2022.
  • A Google Stadia release was planned, but the platform ended up shutting down before the game released.

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