Just two days after the Skull and Bones delay (opens in new tab) Once again, Ubisoft has released a new developer stream, this time in early 2023/24, showcasing the “narrative gameplay” of the often-delayed pirate adventure. The video takes players through an “inquiry” described by Narrative Director Joel Jannise as “a way of telling a story through a series of steps.”
“The player follows a trail of something that they think will be interesting and likely lead to some kind of treasure or some kind of score,” explains Janisse in the video. “But it also tells a story about our factions and our world, and we do that by finding things like finding messages in bottles, scraps of lost journals, sometimes talking to different characters in the world, and through that we’re able to tell a story tell.”
The investigation seen in the video focuses on a dispute between a brother and sister who both believe they are the right heirs to a small kingdom. As a pirate, you don’t particularly care about the politics of the situation, but thrones belong with crowns, and crowns are worth a lot of money.
The plot begins with a mission to loot a local settlement, and that’s where I switch off. The act of looting is simply getting close enough to the port in question, pressing the ‘loot’ button, and then sailing around within a limited area blowing up enemy ships while a timer expires showing the progress of your descent. screen crew power.
“The fantasy here is that while we’re fighting out here and holding our own, they’re scurrying around the settlement, stealing anything they can get their hands on and looking for what we’re looking for in this case, that’s next Note in our investigation,” says Janisse. And I think that sums up one of my core issues with Skull and Bones: It’s pure fantasy because I can’t be a part of it — I can’t even see it.
The same thing happens later in the investigation when Janisse and lead community developer Alexis Cretton decide to investigate a shipwreck they have discovered: they stop, press the “loot” button and the item on board immediately appears in their wreck inventory .
Even sailing, the most basic, central element of Skull and Bones, doesn’t look very impressive. Ships in the video look light and floating, with no mass or inertia, and not very responsive to the water; It’s also impossible to explore ships properly – you can’t go below decks or into the captain’s cabin, for example.
It all seems so boring. My pirate fantasy isn’t to interact with menus and timers, it’s to swashbuckle! Preferably in the most ridiculous way. I said after a gameplay reveal in July 2022 that watching Skull and Bones just makes me want to play Sea of Thieves (opens in new tab), and that is still very much the case. Janisse said Ubisoft has “worked very closely with historians and language and culture experts to make sure we’re accurate,” which is fine – but what about the fun? Skull and Bones has three different styles of sea shanties to reflect the authenticity of the game’s languages and lore; In Sea of Thieves, you can play your own instruments, dance, binge drink, and piss off your teammates.
If you wish, you can do such things as well (opens in new tab):
I don’t know about you, but this is the kind of pirate adventure I want to dive into. (And don’t worry, he’s fine. It’s a big sky adventure for Virgil!)
It’s impossible to make concrete judgments about a game just from videos. But Skull and Bones is drifting, Ubisoft is in trouble (opens in new tab), and at a time when it needs to show itself at its best, that really doesn’t impress. Ubisoft said earlier this week that Skull and Bones’ recent delay “will help us provide further polish and balance,” but what I’m seeing in this video isn’t a lack of polish, it’s a lack of interesting gameplay.
Skull and Bones again has no release date but is expected to arrive early in Ubisoft’s fiscal year 2023-24. So sometime after April 1st.
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