Skull & Bones - Assassin's Creed Black Flag with less assassins and more pirates

Developed by Ubisoft Singapore, Skull & Bones is third person pirate action game with game play based on the naval combat from their previous game, Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag. Previews show that some things are simplified like boarding actions whilst adding multiplayer.

Caught a glimpse at e3 and was surprised that a thread wan't started

Trailer:

Gameplay:

Think the multiplayer thing is a bit... weird.

Everyone wanted more pirate game and ship battles. That was that survey they sent out.

But the ask seemed more for single player adventures etc. Let's see if it's more drop in and out...

It seems like it from the E3 gameplay this year. You'll be sailing the seas with other people being able to join your games. Sort of like Sea of Thieves but more realistic.

Man who'd have thunk that we'd have two pirate-flavored multiplayer open world Triple-A sandbox games out at around the same time.

edited 16th Jun '18 10:17:45 AM by ShirowShirow

Really disapointed by the multiplayer bit. Dropped the ball Ubisoft. Oh well. Two Pirate games who suck it seems.

The question here is if the content and treasure will be worth the price and investment rather than multiplayer=bad.

Also, is there a supernatural element in there as well? Think one of the trailers implies a Kraken at one point. Plus these pirates seem more "Pirates of The Caribbean" with gigantic skull motifs on their ships and ridiculously ornamental things on their prows.

Stylistic, yeah, but I may just go replay Tempest (Which actually isn't half bad, if a bit janky). I just wanted more AC 4 style ship shennanigans, which is what I think most people were after overall. A pirate sandbox a la Sid Miers PIRATES, but with the Black Flag engine...

Man, I still get chills about fighting a Man-o-war in a storm.

I don't think this'll have much in the way of supernatural elements, it's heavily leaning into its pseudo-historical chops in the trailers and Ubisoft especially is veering into less fantastical games more and more.

Which I feel is a shame really. Fighting a flame-spewing horned demon is just inherently more fun than fighting a big guy with a torch in his off hand and a funky helmet if you ask me.

Finally some updates, Ubisoft has announced a gameplay stream for July 7th at 8PM CEST / 11AM PT

Well this changed dramatically since 2018.

Ooh, this is the first I'm hearing of this game.

I hope the engagement with the world is similar to something like Tortuga or Sid Meier's Pirates. I've been waiting for a good new game of that style.

The game was Vaporware for a long time and what sort of game it was supposed to be has changed multiple times.

At one point they even teased sea monster battles.

The impression I was given was they were trying to be a more hardcore Sea of Thieves combined with the usual Ubisoft open-world map-icon-grind.

for those that missed the reveal stream:

Wow, it's finally releasing. Last time that i heard of the game that it was a nightmare trying to finish it since the creators had not idea what direction that want to do with the game since they couldn't cancel it since the studio that was making it was located in Singapore and was given tax breaks with a clause where they will get a hefty fine by the government if they failed to release it.

It does seem like its Sea of Thieves with all the charm sucked out.

Agreed.

Also, nice to see a black male character as the lead of the trailer... Too bad it's a fucking online game so there's no actual character there to create representation.

How hard could it possibly have been to craft a fucking pirate story???

The way I'm guessing it will happen will be like another Ubi game, Rainbow Six Siege - first they start off with relatively realistic weapons eg cannons, rockets and flamethrowers then latter additions be theoretically possible if unlikely before moving into to fantastical - especially for seasonal events and tie-ins -like how the Operators from Siege went from stuff like sledge hammers and breaching charges to nanotechnology and holograms.

They have started releasing it to youtubers

Yeah, my interest in a strong story driven experience is utterly gone. Which is a shame because Black Flag was perfect in that respect.

Offical release date been announced for February 16

Honestly, the second they revealed that it is Naval combat only, no Land Missions whatsoever, my interest was 100% gone.

Ditto.

All I wanted was more Assassins Creed 4.

I'm still fairly interested. Looks like classic Tortuga or Pirates! with more of a plot involved. As long as I don't have to deal with other IRL people constantly like with Sea of Thieves I'm probably in.