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Imagine never being able to top the naval combat of your own game, which came out over a decade ago. And naval combat wasn't even the main focus in that one
Skull and bones naval combat is leagues above black flag mainly because black is not a multiplayer game. All this hate for skull and bones come from people who don’t play who just want to feel included in trending grievance.
The old assassins creed games multiplayers are still fighting! Black flag is one of them with its wolfpack mode and other gamemodes! Theres still discords around!!!! Just spreading the word
Ubisoft is worse than a joke. I wasn't laughing when they shut down The Crew. They didn't make things right with their customers, so now I just look forward to the day they close their doors for good. Also, I'm tired of online only games. If they expect us to pay AAAA prices, then I want AAAA ownership of my product.
@@Okok-kj7zi What are we supposed to do with the files? That's not going to bring back the servers. Actually, I own a physical copy of The Crew. So, I could just stare at the box art and disc. Maybe by the power of my mind, I can make it come to life 😄
Ubisoft: We are making a online Pirate game in the same style as Black Flag! Players: We would love a game where we can swashbuckle and explore the world with our ship! Ubisoft: Correction, you will not swashbuckle. Players: Why make a pirate game if we cannot swashbuckle? Ubisoft: Correction, this is not a pirate game. It’s a pirate ship game. Players: That’s not what anyone wants. Ubisoft: Please buy our ship simulator!
The old assassins creed games multiplayers are still fighting! Black flag is one of them with its wolfpack mode and other gamemodes! Theres still discords around!!!! Just spreading the word!!
I didn't, I've wanted the online pirate crew experience, and Sea of Thieves ended up giving it first, and getting constant new content... That's something they haven't consider, they could release more content after launching it, like the PVP Arena they thought about earlier and more... By the time Skull and Bones came out, I was already into SoT for a long time...
Calling black flag a “mediocre” AC game makes me so mad that game had one of those memorable characters fun combat and plenty of assassin fundamentals on TOP of the chaos of plundering ships and forts
agreed, it was actually a very good AC game, and didn't come out stupid because they dared to have a unique game. i think people forget what a unique game is like, that's why developers keep making crappy games. EA sells the same games every year, and that's what people want or else it's mocked and laughed at
The city level design and movement mechanics were a step backwards, while the underdeveloped stealth mechanics remained the same. The good parts of Black Flag was the pirate stuff. The core AC stuff was a gameplay downgrade, which makes Black Flag a bad AC sequel.
What everyone wants: A modern Sid Meyers Pirates with more ships, more combat features, more expansive trading, and more governors daughters. What we got: Glorified shitty mobile game.
Sid Meier's Pirates is hands down one of the best games of all time. The absolute best pirate game for sure. The sandbox nature of the game and the ability to change the world in ways that matter has never been topped in my opinion, and that game came out in 2004. Can you imagine something similar brought to the modern era with the sailing and combat of AC4? It would have been a slam dunk. I don't understand why Ubisoft blundered so hard. The incompetence is so astounding it'd be hilarious if it wasn't so fucking disappointing.
Totally agree. Pirates was the pinnacle of the genre and few games have come close to that sense of adventure. A game similar to Sid Meier's Pirates! would be a gold mine, but developers/publishers are too short sighted and entranced by multiplayer PvP.
The old assassins creed games multiplayers are still fighting! Black flag is one of them with its wolfpack mode and other gamemodes! Theres still discords around!!!! Just spreading the word!!!
Remember there was a point where Skull and Bones and Sea of Thieves was supposed to go head to head as pirate games and people thought Sea of Thieves would lose out...funny times those were
My Fiance seen me playing AC black flag four years ago. At the time she was in college. She was due to write a essay on pirates. Due to watching me on the seas in black flag (i always had my mwn singing shanties). She did her essay over real sea shanties from history and got an excellent grade! Funny how life works. :)
The old assassins creed games multiplayers are still fighting! Black flag is one of them with its wolfpack mode and other gamemodes! Theres still discords around!!!! Just spreading the word!!!
@John-PaulHunt-q3zconcord is an okay game. There’s just no reason to play it over anything else. Mediocre is just not enough nowadays especially when games of the same genre are free.
@@Threebeams anthem was fun, just a terrible story that was really short and stupid and dumb diverse characters with no substance and repetitive missions for grinding
As an software engineer from Singapore, the final game is exactly what I expect from local staff. Managers are hired without requiring any track record of successful development. Competent engineers face problems because management doesn't understand development. Managers then get worried about getting exposed so they deem the competent engineers as troublemakers and the source of problems. Competent engineers leave and get replaced by yes men. Managers and leads continue to lie to their bosses who are likely incompetent themselves and don't question enough. It's likely that the original Assassin's Creed developers left a long time ago after raising up frustrations and issues with the development process and being ignored.
Taking into account the recent release of Outlaws and the criticism of Shadows, I`d think Ubisoft is no more. What is left is a corporation that sees the customer as a wallet and just release games in order to milk their customers out of money. And I say this as a former fan of Assassin`s Creed, title I played since the first one until Valhalla. Ubisoft lost it`s soul.
This game never had a chance in hell. Every time they announced how basic and barebones the features were, nobody was ever interested. Hell, I don't think even Ubisoft was interested in this. This game would've easily been canceled if Singapore wasn't invested in it.
The old assassins creed games multiplayers are still fighting! Black flag is one of them with its wolfpack mode and other gamemodes! Theres still discords around!!!! Just spreading the word!!
One of the devs who was anamously interviewed by kotaku literally said that if this game was made by any other studio, it would have been canceled 10 times over.
Best one I ever played was Pirates of the Burning Sea like 16 years ago lol. When you actually coordinated with people and fought in major battles it was very intense. Not a perfect game by any means but very cool.
@@demoncleaner80 I never played that one, but I did play the 2003(?) Pirates of the Caribbean. Aka Sea Dogs 2 It had a lot of good stuff, some eastern company got hold of the rights and made To Each His Own. Pretty cool too, but extremely jank.
@@Cluxiu First, not a fan of multiplayer. Second, it's a bit too cartoony for what I'm hoping for. A bit more realism, a bit more gritty? Hmm.. But it's cool. I did play Atlas (same people that made Ark, just with pirate theme(and much better example to use in the video, hehe)) back in the day, it's very cool, but again, it's dependent on multiplayer to be fun.
a mistake i always see is big game studios announcing and giving trailers for games too early and then drastically changing vision just to try and release "a game"
I avoid Ubisoft titles. When I see a game that is half interesting but then realize it’s Ubisoft I lose all interest. I haven’t bought an AC title since unity. They’re toast as a studio. EA is right behind them.
Studios have hired too many woke employees. You can’t get anything accomplished because they are more worried about their feelings instead of a great game.
Black flags abstergo narrative was just a normal day at Ubisoft. Corruption, greed, nepotism and alternative motives to everything.. only thing missing is SA/SH
As a species I don’t know how we get anything done, How do people always manage to be the worst that they can possibly be whenever they’re given any position of power?
It still amazes me how badly Ubisoft fumbled this. They just had to take the pirate part of Black Flag, expand it a bit to make it a full game and release it within a decent time limit. It seems that trend chasing might be the main reason they ended up doing so badly. Don’t chase what other games are doing-just focus on the pirate game. The obsession with live service seems to be a trap that sinks so many games.
They should have made a Black Flag trilogy. Three games featuring Kenways development as an assassin, just as they did with Ezio. ... but then you remember we're talking about Poundland EA ... sorry, Ubisoft.
Nice video, enjoyed watching it :) Well written and structured. Mind if I give some constructive critique? The editing, specifically the popups is overwhelming in the sheer amount. I don't mind them from time to time to visualize what is the subject, but I don't need the logo of ubisoft EVERY time you mention them, nor the name of the game popping up the cover-art. Less is more my friend :) Saying this to help, not to hurt. Hope it comes across like that.
I love how he always says something along the lines of "but I wanna hear your opinions in the comments" when he doesn't read, like, nor reply to 9/10 comments made that give more interesting incite and information than the video itself. If you just want free comments to boost your channel in the algorithm, then just say so and stop pretending like you care about anything your audience has to say.
The military term 'mission creep' comes to mind when reviewing the story of skull 'n' bones: ever changing and constantly more ambitious plans that far outgrew the original focus of the game. Combine it with horrible and constantly changing management and yeah, I can see how that would be setting up for failure.
Does it really need explanation? They released a downgrade of a decade old game filled it with all of the worst things you can find in modern games and called it a AAAA game thinking we wouldn't notice
AC II and Brotherhood were peak originals (Revelations was falling off, but it was still a good play). Everything about Ezio and Desmond was unique, compelling, and well thought out. Black Flag couldn't be ignored as it brought something masterful to the experience (introducing ships in AC III, which was under rated IMO) making it feel like its own character (I can hear the shanties in my head).There was more to it than just attempting to copy another's success (AC after Origins, but starting there). It lost the passion, creativity, and its foundation. After repeated mistakes chasing $$$, I consider them a joke. Even my dumb@ss would've learned by now. Ps, if you haven't enjoyed AC Unity...you fu
It's not hard to see why ubisoft is sinking fast. They have done everything they cam to pick up on trends that make the most money from the least effort. They are trying to find their "get rich quick" scheme. And every try puts their investment at a loss. Pure greed is controlling the head. They don't care about well detailed games and stories that bring joy to players. They just want to hook those players that get obsessed and addicted to repeated spending in their games. Those players, though fewer in number, will bring in the most money. So that's been their plan.
Personally I like Skull and Bones just as much as Sea of Thieves - but that's probably because I'm a big fan of multiple ships manned by friends vs all on one ship and I'm also not really into PvP... which skull and bones at least lets me opt out of without penalizing me.
It was so hilarious when the game came out to see almost a hundred players Sailing around; The next day I get on to finish upgrading and there was probably 5 players max
This happens when developers new employees never played the previous titles , these new employees where 2years old when assassins creed pirates came out and never bother to play it or find out why it was so great Same happened to battlefield
I really hope that somewhere in the world there is a studio that in February 2024, after seeing S&B's failure, started developing the ultimate pirate game that the general public has been looking forward to. There must be one, at least, who has seen this failer as a massive opportunity, right?
I think that the mistake they made with this game, is that they wanted more assassins creed but less assassins creed. When they realized it looked too much like Black Flag, they entirely changed its gameplay.
No not at all, it was more like they looked at the numbers. Players liked the ships component of black flag, so they made a game on the ship combat only. It was never supposed to be AC nor was the general consensus amongst players to have another AC copy. Sadly, Ubisoft doesn’t listen to the players, they listen to the stats and data. The proof is everywhere, u play black flag and after each mission a pop up comes up for u to rate each mission. Furthermore, it’s common knowledge that the game was a success thanks and in large to the ship gameplay. Ubi never got around to incorporating that multiplayer ship arena mode into black flag, so they made a game revolving around it. The whole story is a mess that includes devs who didn’t have the creative talent to produce a good pirate game, limited by their scope and focus, wanting a world of warships knock off and executives who in their greed, kept on rejecting iterations of the game leading to the decade long stalemate and release date push back
The old assassins creed games multiplayers are still fighting! Black flag is one of them with its wolfpack mode and other gamemodes! Theres still discords around!!!! Just spreading the word!!!
The made a store front with a premium price tag. The did not make a Pirate story with characters, adventure, structure and most importantly AN ENDING. Even Minecraft has an ending. A goal the work for. Everything else is a self imposed art project Skull and bones is dress up Dolly's with a graphics that melt you PC. I can think of better ways to have fun.
Ubisoft should just go bankrupt. I feel sorry for all the developers because im a developer myself but their management as a company has gone from excellent to a total joke and extortionate. They milk every franchise for what its worth and spoil everything that was great about their games.
It would have been so great if they didn't duck it up. Building your own ship, upgrading it, decorating it inside and out. PvE\PvP zones. Just imagine you could take trophies from fallen enemies to decorate your ship with. The possibilities are endless. Imagine having perma death races. People start with the same type of ship and during xx amout of days fighting it out for no1 spot. But if your boat is sunk you have to restart. That is just one type of event they could have run.
It hits home when you mentioned how the management didn't listen to concerns and issues raised by the workers and surrounded themselves with agreeable people. Name a business where this autocratic management led to a successful company, I'll wait.
It's insane, cause i found this game almost 2 years before it came out and was hoping it will be a huge successor to that of sea of thieves. Turns out Sea of thieves still remains as the best known MMO pirate game.
I really do not get how incompetent people are. Take Blackflag, slap a progression system on getting different ships aswell as upgrading them, add coop for bossfights, a little pvp mode with the existing stuff and call it a day. Solid gameplay, many new features, get it going. "Building a new IP is hard". How about you branch off from what you had and DEVELOP a new IP. You didn't start from scratch. You had your first game in the IP already, accidently. Just take the feedback of players and incorporate it into a new one. Rinse and repeat. It's really not that hard to get to this conclusion ...
And the launch on steam confirms once again just how much S&B has failed. According to steam db, Black Flag, which is over a decade old, has more active players than the new AAAA pirate game S&B.
The old assassins creed games multiplayers are still fighting! Black flag is one of them with its wolfpack mode and other gamemodes! Theres still discords around!!!! Just spreading the word!!
If they just added more land exploration, especially for the treasure hunting, ect, I feel like this would go a long way. They could add wild animals, skeletons, snakes, all sorts of stuff to just give us something to do. Even cooler would be base building so we could really make our own empires on said land. The game is far too small for the vision they want so I really hope they do massive work on it because I honestly love it but there does need more. Its also too grindy, either, more resources or less resources needed to craft would be nice too, not by much but ya. I feel like the PVE aspect really needs more care shown to it as I really love the PVE aspect of this game. It still gives a good amount of action with the ship fighting and im not into someone else having an unfair advantage just picking on me anyway, thats why I left Sea of Thieves. I believe this game has great potential, if they would actually put the work in, instead of paying people a crap tone of money for half baked concepts and ideas of which are not in the long run worth it.
Why it failed, no ship boarding, no land exploration, stupid looking ships, ridiculous ship weapons, stupid missions. Knowing all this but making the game anyway.
It is sad as so many fans wanted this however there is now a large hole in the market for a smaller studio to tackle this and give fans of black flag what they want. We should never correct greedy companies let them fail and learn why opening up more opportunities for small studios to grow it's the only way we will see GREAT GAMES again.
I was gifted SnB by a friend and ive absolutely enjoyed it ive encountered minimal issues that happen when any game launches and i thoroughly enjoy playing it. It is not black flag and i dont care. Never played Ac. I do play red dead redemption2 which i also enjoy.
I think what really frustrates me is it will be quite a long time before we see another pirate game if at all. Sea of thieves was probably the last quality pirate game to be made, but the game is not entirely an rpg but more about building your own story thru survival mechanics and socializing. The game is on sale right now for 30 bucks last day I believe. Bought it because I know it is all we got. It’s not what we wanted but it’s what we got. Hopefully I can alternate between SoT and this game along with the pirates strat game long enough until a real fleshed out game comes out. If it ever does…
It's a good game and I still play. So do thousands of other people. Ubisoft even came out saying it has great player retention. It's only a failure on social media/TH-cam levels where everyone hates Ubisoft or just decries 'Oh but black flag did this and black flag did that's when it isn't meant to be black flag at all. Nah, game has strong following and people are still buying especially on consoles.
lol strong “player retention”, don’t kid urself. Players come back cuz they expect the game to change with each update, and each update they are disappointed. Last season had a max of 10 players per server, the average person quit this game in less than 30 minutes of playing. Don’t be gullible, obviously the company behind the game will not provide the truth if it’s bound to hurt them. They’re a a corporate business with goal #1 being to produce money. Why do u think they use these beautiful masqueraded words instead of just going out and saying “This is how many players we have playing the game on average” or “This is how much money the game has made after calculating cost values”. Why? I’ll give u a clue, it’s not cuz of you, it’s cuz that way they can keep their investors happy and eating out from their pockets, and as a side effect, ur out here eating all that garbage spew as well.
I really like this game, and the servers are always full on ps5... It seems the only people who don't like it are content creator's and there's subscribers...
I played in 2 rounds of the betas in I think it was early 2023 and the only thing I could say as a positive thing is that.. "well, it doesn't look bad, runs decent", because I was expecting a shitshow, a game struggling to run on my new 6700XT while looking good, but, hey, atleast that wasn't the case. The playtime was limited, 6 hours if I recall correctly and despite playing with friends I spent 5 hours of that just sailing around, gathering stuff, fighting a ship here and there. In AC4/Rogue sailing around, fighting and boarding ships wasn't boring, because.. you know, both are AC games and you can ACTUALLY board ships instead of getting a cutscene.
I like the game!! It’s fun to play and when the content slows down it give me time to play other games. I don’t feel married to this game like I have felt with other games like Destiny. And yes there is a lot of people who actually do play the game. Every time I play the server is full. But each to there own ✌🏼
There was a time when nearly every game me and my buddies played was a Ubisoft game. I was burned on so many pre orders.. I can’t imagine them ever releasing a game worth checking out again.
They could still save this by not making the players force into pvp, they literally had division, and breakpoint which you can progess the world on your own with the option to go co op or pvp. If they implement that. I would surely buy this game
But... they don't force you into PvP. Players can't damage each other unless you opt in to have PvP. There are a couple exceptions to it but they are late game events that players usually aren't contested in anyway. And for co-op, basically the entire game after the tutorial can be done in co-op.
I may be one of the few people who actually enjoyed playing Skull and Bones. I ended up stopping after I had 3 achievements left for online play because there's never anyone to join up with
Interesting, funny certainly ironic even how none of these teams had ANY idea of what players wanted. While the original idea was exactly what we wanted, a *Assassins creed Black Flag* without the whole *AC* story.
I would have bought and played it had it been single player, and while I'm not going to make or break a game like this on my own, I'm betting there are many others who felt/feel the same way.
Once Sea of Thieves came out, Ubisoft was done in the pirate market. SoT is so GOOD. It looks incredible and it's extremely fun to play. It has passion, something Ubisoft lacks.
Man, I've seen Ubisoft's downfall from the very beginning. To me, back when I was a kid, I was so proud of Ubisoft, because most of my favorite games ever (Assasins creed, far cry, splinter cell) were made in Quebec, where I live. They made wonderful games that I used to play for hours on end. I remember playing far cry 4 on launch day. It wasn't the greatest game they made, but I was just a kid back then and it's undeniable that it is a good game overall. Their love for their games showed with their older releases. To me, Ubisoft died when I first played Assasins creed : Valhalla. I saw that the entire vision of being an Assasin was completely out of the picture. All these years, they made good games about being an Assasin with inner conflicts, but it's now gone. It didn't deserve the Assasins creed name. After that, it only got worse. Rainbow six : Extraction was an amazing game with a beautiful and unique vision and actually really fun gameplay, good progression system, a challenging experience and most of all : I felt the love they put in this unique experience. Something I didn't sense in years. As soon as I heard they would completely stop development on the game, after promising new operators and enemy types in the upcoming months, I completely gave up. No longer would I support them after that. It only got worse from there, you all know : XDefiant, Star wars outlaws, AC Shadows controversy and delay and work abuse. No longer do they have the drive to innovate, they only make games off of their popular IP's because they know damn well the diehard fans don't see how bad they are YET. I believed in them, but my trust has long been killed. Ubisoft will never come back to their original self, they completely lost their vision. They completely pale compared to ACTUALLY good studios who makes great and fun games like : Ghost of tsushima, Deep rock galactic, Helldivers 2 and I can name more because almost everything is better than the slop they dare make us pay for these days. The upper management should be ashamed. Never buying anything from them again unless I can sense that the love and vision they once had miraculously comes back, and we all know it won't. It's only a matter of time now until they shut down. That's what I think from this mess.
An online pvp based pirate game should have been an MMO. Because for it to succeed it is essential that you actually can roleplay as a pirate in a massive open world filled with other pirate players on land and sea. Maybe allow player housing so you could have your own little shack in some harbor. Maybe guilds could build fortresses or something... Like a true living pirate world. Surely 11 years development time and a budget that a compamy like Ubisoft can provide, should make this doable. And its not that complicated, its basically just WoW classic with ships added in. It would have been a wet (!) dream for gamers around the world.
It’s because it’s not a pirate game it’s a battleship simulation with pirate style. If you saw any announcement of the game …Ubisoft claimed that it was going to be just like black flag without the assassin theme ( sword fights,plundering other ships , etc) if UBISOFT never said this then nobody would of had an issue but they are the ones that said it was going to be a actual pirate game . That’s the issue
That's what we need to make the game great Skull and Bones New Game Plus, players could transform their island into a thriving hub of power and intrigue by combining island management, right-hand characters, secret societies, and mystical spiritual elements. Here’s how all these features could work together: Island Ownership and Management Players would acquire their own island, which they can develop into a personalized stronghold. The island would include buildings for crafting, trade, shipbuilding, and defensive structures. Players would be responsible for managing the island’s economy, ensuring resources are gathered, businesses are thriving, and the island’s defenses are solid. Upgrades to the island would be necessary to unlock more advanced functions, such as expanding production capabilities or increasing trade efficiency. Right-Hand Character Once the island is established, players could choose a trusted right-hand character, much like Li Tian Li, to help manage the island. This character would have specific abilities to boost the island’s growth and offer strategic advice. Players could select their right-hand from a variety of unique characters, each with their own skill set, personality, and background. Some might specialize in logistics, others in combat or diplomacy, and their abilities would help enhance trade routes, shipyard productivity, or the island’s defenses. Secret Societies Players could align their island with a secret society of their choice, such as the "Order of the Black Tide," "Children of the Abyss," or "Ancient Mariners." Each secret society would offer unique benefits, quests, and spiritual powers tied to the society's ancient lore. For example: Order of the Black Tide could grant shadowy weaponry and the ability to manipulate the economy or sabotage rivals. Children of the Abyss might unlock storm-based powers and enhance the island’s sea defenses, allowing the player to summon tidal waves or rainstorms to protect their territory. Ancient Mariners would provide spiritual guidance, the power to summon sea spirits, and abilities tied to lost artifacts, such as the "Eyes of the Deep" for revealing hidden treasures and routes. By aligning with a secret society, players would gain not only mystical powers but also influence over the game’s world, able to manipulate trade, sabotage competitors, or gain intel on rival factions and companies. Divine Weapons and Spiritual Protection Through the secret society, players could also gain access to divine weapons and spiritual protection. After completing sacred rituals tied to their chosen society, players could unlock powerful weapons like enchanted cutlasses or tridents that carry unique effects, such as summoning ghostly cannons or harnessing elemental powers. Additionally, spiritual protections from guardian spirits could shield the island from attacks, provide buffs to the crew, or even summon visions that guide the player to hidden resources. Stock, Shares, and Business Ownership Players would not only control their island but could also engage in a deeper economic system by investing in businesses and purchasing shares in companies. This stock market would be impacted by players' actions-such as raiding or protecting trade routes, influencing prices, or protecting rival companies. Investments could provide passive income or unlock new opportunities to expand businesses on their island, making them a powerful economic player in the world. Players could choose to manage a company, manipulate the market, or sabotage rivals through their secret society’s influence. The Ultimate Power - Spirit-Touched Captain By mastering the island, forming strong relationships with the right-hand character, and forging a bond with a secret society, players would unlock the ultimate title of "Spirit-Touched Captain." This would grant the player unparalleled powers-divine weapons, mystical insights, enhanced protection, and the ability to manipulate the economy. They would rule not only the seas but also the world of commerce and secret knowledge, becoming a legendary figure of both spiritual and economic might. This combination of features would offer players a deep, immersive experience where they can build, manage, and protect their island, wield divine powers, navigate a complex economic system, and interact with a rich web of secret societies and mystical forces.
The failure of Skull and Bones to meet expectations can be attributed to a combination of factors, both internal to Ubisoft and external in the gaming landscape. Here's a detailed breakdown: 1. Prolonged Development Cycle Announced in 2017, Skull and Bones experienced multiple delays and a drawn-out development period, leading to development hell. This created skepticism among fans and media. Shifts in vision: The game started as a naval combat spin-off of Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag but underwent numerous redesigns, trying to cater to both single-player and live-service audiences. 2. Lack of Innovation The game's core mechanics-ship-based combat-appeared similar to Black Flag but lacked significant evolution. Many previews suggested the gameplay loop felt repetitive, limited primarily to naval battles without substantial on-land exploration or dynamic story elements, which many fans expected. 3. Overemphasis on Multiplayer The focus on multiplayer live-service elements alienated those who loved the narrative-driven, open-world exploration of Black Flag. Ubisoft aimed to replicate the success of games like Sea of Thieves, but fans criticized the lack of creative freedom and exploration that made such games successful. 4. Poor Communication and Hype Mismanagement Ubisoft's marketing struggled to maintain excitement over years of delays, with limited updates and an unclear vision of the final product. Repeated delays hurt trust and anticipation, with fans questioning whether the game would ever be released. 5. Shifting Market Trends The success of Sea of Thieves set a high bar for pirate-themed games. Rare's game thrived on community-driven adventures, humor, and player freedom, while Skull and Bones appeared rigid and overly structured. The rise of other live-service games like Fortnite and Genshin Impact shifted player attention toward genres with broader appeal. 6. Internal Development Challenges Reports of mismanagement within Ubisoft Singapore, the lead studio, highlighted inefficiencies and leadership challenges. Forced development obligations: Reports suggest the game had to be completed due to a contract between Ubisoft and the Singapore government, adding pressure to deliver regardless of quality. 7. Missed Opportunities Fans hoped for a spiritual successor to Black Flag that combined naval combat with on-land exploration, RPG mechanics, and rich storytelling. Instead, Skull and Bones leaned heavily into ship mechanics, which were already criticized for being overly repetitive in previews. 8. Negative Pre-Release Reception Early gameplay previews drew mixed to negative feedback, with critics calling the game "shallow" and lacking the charm or depth of other pirate games. Comparisons to older Ubisoft titles and contemporaries like Sea of Thieves often painted Skull and Bones as outdated before its release. In Summary Skull and Bones faltered because it failed to deliver what fans wanted-an innovative, narrative-rich pirate adventure. Instead, it focused on naval combat and multiplayer live-service elements, which didn't resonate with players. The drawn-out development, lack of clear vision, and stiff competition further sealed its fate. Ubisoft's inability to adapt the game to evolving market expectations left Skull and Bones adrift, struggling to stay relevant in a sea of superior alternatives.
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Imagine never being able to top the naval combat of your own game, which came out over a decade ago. And naval combat wasn't even the main focus in that one
The studio was able, but Ubisoft changed direction so often that it was impossible.
I think they use 10 years developing a new monetization scheme and 1 year of creating the actual fucking game.
@@some-online-dude Female leadership lmao
Skull and bones naval combat is leagues above black flag mainly because black is not a multiplayer game. All this hate for skull and bones come from people who don’t play who just want to feel included in trending grievance.
i heard it's made by interns, what do you expect?
All people wanted was just Black Flag but only about pirates. That's it. Ubisoft is just too stupid to give people what they want.
That’s what fanboys wanted..
@@MrAjking808 Not fanboys. Normal gaming market. Like AC in Japan. Monkey paw moment but the point still stand.
@@MrAjking808keep thinking that 😂😂
@@MrAjking808 yeah all 12 skull and bones players are really happy rn and ubisoft lost $200m
@@MrAjking808 "fanboys" are the people who are going to buy the game? Why wouldn't Ubisoft cater to them?
They spent 11 years to make a worse version of a single part of a game.
Literally all they had to do was make a black flag sequel without the assassin stuff.
That was the plan then the fan got upset said it looked like AC 😂😂 no one knows what they want
The old assassins creed games multiplayers are still fighting! Black flag is one of them with its wolfpack mode and other gamemodes!
Theres still discords around!!!!
Just spreading the word
Not even a sequel. A sequel would imply having a story. All they had to do was pick up an element and drop it on a game to call it a day.
Yes.
Reminds me of battlefield 2042. We just wanted an updated battlefield 4. Such a simple order in reality
Ubisoft is worse than a joke. I wasn't laughing when they shut down The Crew. They didn't make things right with their customers, so now I just look forward to the day they close their doors for good. Also, I'm tired of online only games. If they expect us to pay AAAA prices, then I want AAAA ownership of my product.
Then download the game files on pc or buy a disk its not that hard.
@@Okok-kj7zi What are we supposed to do with the files? That's not going to bring back the servers. Actually, I own a physical copy of The Crew. So, I could just stare at the box art and disc. Maybe by the power of my mind, I can make it come to life 😄
Stopped buying anything Ubisoft now - they're all the same game with slightly different skins.
@@Okok-kj7zi If you bought it on steam or an online store even if you have it downloaded it wont get past the DRM and wont it launch.
@@Lanokota To quote the sow from Forespoken "You can do that with your freakin mind?"
Ubisoft: We are making a online Pirate game in the same style as Black Flag!
Players: We would love a game where we can swashbuckle and explore the world with our ship!
Ubisoft: Correction, you will not swashbuckle.
Players: Why make a pirate game if we cannot swashbuckle?
Ubisoft: Correction, this is not a pirate game. It’s a pirate ship game.
Players: That’s not what anyone wants.
Ubisoft: Please buy our ship simulator!
I bought it for 10 dollars from Best Buy and played it for 30 minutes and went back to playing Alien Isolation. Haha
Man I wish if there was Aline isolation game
The old assassins creed games multiplayers are still fighting! Black flag is one of them with its wolfpack mode and other gamemodes!
Theres still discords around!!!!
Just spreading the word!!
Alien Isolation is a much better use of your time than Ubislop
Stop giving your hard earned money to these terrible companies for this trash, even if it’s $10.
@@ponraul1221 Sir, yes sir! Any other unsolicited advice you’d like to give me?
"Why Skull and Bones Failed"
Because I just wanted a cool single player, open world Black Flag 2 game.
I didn't, I've wanted the online pirate crew experience, and Sea of Thieves ended up giving it first, and getting constant new content... That's something they haven't consider, they could release more content after launching it, like the PVP Arena they thought about earlier and more... By the time Skull and Bones came out, I was already into SoT for a long time...
Yup, they could have made a single player Black Flag spin-off with updated graphic and story, and it would have made Ubisoft tons of money.
Calling black flag a “mediocre” AC game makes me so mad that game had one of those memorable characters fun combat and plenty of assassin fundamentals on TOP of the chaos of plundering ships and forts
agreed, it was actually a very good AC game, and didn't come out stupid because they dared to have a unique game. i think people forget what a unique game is like, that's why developers keep making crappy games. EA sells the same games every year, and that's what people want or else it's mocked and laughed at
I agree. No idea why he used mediocre there. I enjoyed the AC parts of the game.
I disagree. I think it was a good pirate game, but a bad Assassins Creed game. It was the beginning of the end for the core of Assassins Creed
@@beanjuice4263bean juice said it perfect, bad ac game. fantastic pirate game. top tier S class
The city level design and movement mechanics were a step backwards, while the underdeveloped stealth mechanics remained the same.
The good parts of Black Flag was the pirate stuff. The core AC stuff was a gameplay downgrade, which makes Black Flag a bad AC sequel.
What everyone wants: A modern Sid Meyers Pirates with more ships, more combat features, more expansive trading, and more governors daughters.
What we got: Glorified shitty mobile game.
Sid Meier's Pirates is hands down one of the best games of all time. The absolute best pirate game for sure. The sandbox nature of the game and the ability to change the world in ways that matter has never been topped in my opinion, and that game came out in 2004. Can you imagine something similar brought to the modern era with the sailing and combat of AC4? It would have been a slam dunk. I don't understand why Ubisoft blundered so hard. The incompetence is so astounding it'd be hilarious if it wasn't so fucking disappointing.
you underestimate mobile games.
Totally agree. Pirates was the pinnacle of the genre and few games have come close to that sense of adventure. A game similar to Sid Meier's Pirates! would be a gold mine, but developers/publishers are too short sighted and entranced by multiplayer PvP.
The old assassins creed games multiplayers are still fighting! Black flag is one of them with its wolfpack mode and other gamemodes!
Theres still discords around!!!!
Just spreading the word!!!
Sorry I want a pirate game. Not single player Mario Party. Sid Meyers Pirates was terrible.
Remember there was a point where Skull and Bones and Sea of Thieves was supposed to go head to head as pirate games and people thought Sea of Thieves would lose out...funny times those were
*Lose
The rope was (loose). Why did they (lose)?
@@mremptytheeclip9420 thanks...stupid speech to text
@@mremptytheeclip9420 don't bother correcting. It is a red flag alerting us to third worlders and mouth breathers
Literally all they had to do was copy sea of thieves with more killing and a more mature tone, instead they made world of warships pirate edition
My Fiance seen me playing AC black flag four years ago. At the time she was in college. She was due to write a essay on pirates. Due to watching me on the seas in black flag (i always had my mwn singing shanties). She did her essay over real sea shanties from history and got an excellent grade! Funny how life works. :)
That sounds awesome
That's awesome.
First ever AAAA game, first ever AAAA failure.... 😂😂😅😂
The old assassins creed games multiplayers are still fighting! Black flag is one of them with its wolfpack mode and other gamemodes!
Theres still discords around!!!!
Just spreading the word!!!
@John-PaulHunt-q3zconcord is an okay game. There’s just no reason to play it over anything else. Mediocre is just not enough nowadays especially when games of the same genre are free.
They gonna crawl back in their cave with that delusional comment and hopefully never use it again...
It doesn't even count as AA
@@Sonofsun. The 'A' in a game title is regarding budget, not quality.
I remember i got hate for saying this game is gonna fail before it released. I called it “Barebones” because of the lack of content the game had
Good call.
I was the same on Anthem.
@@jayfolki forgot what the main problem with anthem was
@@Threebeams anthem was fun, just a terrible story that was really short and stupid and dumb diverse characters with no substance and repetitive missions for grinding
@donsimons9810 not to mention finding rare loot was harder than should've been, borderlands 2 really nailed down how rarity should feel
Ubisoft is so lazy that they couldn’t even manage a black flag reskin with multiplayer
As an software engineer from Singapore, the final game is exactly what I expect from local staff.
Managers are hired without requiring any track record of successful development. Competent engineers face problems because management doesn't understand development.
Managers then get worried about getting exposed so they deem the competent engineers as troublemakers and the source of problems. Competent engineers leave and get replaced by yes men. Managers and leads continue to lie to their bosses who are likely incompetent themselves and don't question enough.
It's likely that the original Assassin's Creed developers left a long time ago after raising up frustrations and issues with the development process and being ignored.
Taking into account the recent release of Outlaws and the criticism of Shadows, I`d think Ubisoft is no more. What is left is a corporation that sees the customer as a wallet and just release games in order to milk their customers out of money. And I say this as a former fan of Assassin`s Creed, title I played since the first one until Valhalla. Ubisoft lost it`s soul.
Shadows can’t have criticisms if it hasn’t even released
@@GomezSuper11 oh boy... Late to the party are we?
This game never had a chance in hell. Every time they announced how basic and barebones the features were, nobody was ever interested. Hell, I don't think even Ubisoft was interested in this. This game would've easily been canceled if Singapore wasn't invested in it.
I think it was leaked somewhere that they didnt wanna persue the thing but were reminded by Singaporean authorities that they have to
The old assassins creed games multiplayers are still fighting! Black flag is one of them with its wolfpack mode and other gamemodes!
Theres still discords around!!!!
Just spreading the word!!
One of the devs who was anamously interviewed by kotaku literally said that if this game was made by any other studio, it would have been canceled 10 times over.
Why tf are governments and tax payer money being involved in trash games now?
@ponraul1221 ubisoft Singapore was mainly developing the game, and ubisoft made a deal with the Singaporean government to get funds for the studio
Man, sailing games have had it rough. There are very few games out there that capture the feeling of the trope.
Best one I ever played was Pirates of the Burning Sea like 16 years ago lol.
When you actually coordinated with people and fought in major battles it was very intense. Not a perfect game by any means but very cool.
@@demoncleaner80 I never played that one, but I did play the 2003(?) Pirates of the Caribbean. Aka Sea Dogs 2
It had a lot of good stuff, some eastern company got hold of the rights and made To Each His Own. Pretty cool too, but extremely jank.
@@JaxiPaxified they remade it.. sea dogs to each your own
sea of thieves.
@@Cluxiu First, not a fan of multiplayer. Second, it's a bit too cartoony for what I'm hoping for. A bit more realism, a bit more gritty? Hmm.. But it's cool.
I did play Atlas (same people that made Ark, just with pirate theme(and much better example to use in the video, hehe)) back in the day, it's very cool, but again, it's dependent on multiplayer to be fun.
a mistake i always see is big game studios announcing and giving trailers for games too early and then drastically changing vision just to try and release "a game"
0:10 ehm quadruple A!!! Big words for a big failure, fitting
Forget everything you know about pirate games
It just impressive how bad SnB development went. And the worst part of all, I am 99% sure Ubisoft did NOT learn the lesson
Nobody asked why because everyone knows the answer. The game is simply terrible
@Pocketnaut indeed, I'm just echoing the public sentiment. I don't have anything against the video
I just watched 30 seconds of this and it looks like DEEEEEI sh1t.
It's hard to guess how many people actively play skull and bones every day, but it's in the thousands, so it can't be too bad
People were not ready for AAAA.
I avoid Ubisoft titles.
When I see a game that is half interesting but then realize it’s Ubisoft I lose all interest.
I haven’t bought an AC title since unity.
They’re toast as a studio. EA is right behind them.
They keep spending millions making games that nobody want's to play.
They don’t know what their players want
Studios have hired too many woke employees. You can’t get anything accomplished because they are more worried about their feelings instead of a great game.
Fans: We want assassins creed pirate spinoff
Devs: We dont want to make an assassins creed pirate spinoff =)
Fans: We dont want to play your game =)
Black flags abstergo narrative was just a normal day at Ubisoft. Corruption, greed, nepotism and alternative motives to everything.. only thing missing is SA/SH
Imagine spending 10 years making a game and then it just flops
So, Duke Nukem Forever?
As a species I don’t know how we get anything done, How do people always manage to be the worst that they can possibly be whenever they’re given any position of power?
It still amazes me how badly Ubisoft fumbled this. They just had to take the pirate part of Black Flag, expand it a bit to make it a full game and release it within a decent time limit.
It seems that trend chasing might be the main reason they ended up doing so badly. Don’t chase what other games are doing-just focus on the pirate game. The obsession with live service seems to be a trap that sinks so many games.
2014: Makes the best pirate game
2024: Makes the worst pirate game
Perfectly balanced, as all things should be
I hope the higher ups of Ubisoft Singapore were replaced w decent passionate people, the original idea would have been so dope to have
0:30 huh? imo it was the best assassin's creed then ac3
Yeah. Respectfully, I think the creator is way off too
The best is brotherhood its but not my favourite my favourite is ac1
They should have made a Black Flag trilogy. Three games featuring Kenways development as an assassin, just as they did with Ezio.
... but then you remember we're talking about Poundland EA ... sorry, Ubisoft.
Nice video, enjoyed watching it :) Well written and structured.
Mind if I give some constructive critique?
The editing, specifically the popups is overwhelming in the sheer amount. I don't mind them from time to time to visualize what is the subject, but I don't need the logo of ubisoft EVERY time you mention them, nor the name of the game popping up the cover-art.
Less is more my friend :) Saying this to help, not to hurt. Hope it comes across like that.
I love how he always says something along the lines of "but I wanna hear your opinions in the comments" when he doesn't read, like, nor reply to 9/10 comments made that give more interesting incite and information than the video itself.
If you just want free comments to boost your channel in the algorithm, then just say so and stop pretending like you care about anything your audience has to say.
I just find it insane when studios are worried about their game being just like something really successful.
The military term 'mission creep' comes to mind when reviewing the story of skull 'n' bones: ever changing and constantly more ambitious plans that far outgrew the original focus of the game. Combine it with horrible and constantly changing management and yeah, I can see how that would be setting up for failure.
i will never understand what is happening in ubisofts upper management
Does it really need explanation? They released a downgrade of a decade old game filled it with all of the worst things you can find in modern games and called it a AAAA game thinking we wouldn't notice
AC II and Brotherhood were peak originals (Revelations was falling off, but it was still a good play). Everything about Ezio and Desmond was unique, compelling, and well thought out.
Black Flag couldn't be ignored as it brought something masterful to the experience (introducing ships in AC III, which was under rated IMO) making it feel like its own character (I can hear the shanties in my head).There was more to it than just attempting to copy another's success (AC after Origins, but starting there). It lost the passion, creativity, and its foundation.
After repeated mistakes chasing $$$, I consider them a joke. Even my dumb@ss would've learned by now.
Ps, if you haven't enjoyed AC Unity...you fu
It's not hard to see why ubisoft is sinking fast. They have done everything they cam to pick up on trends that make the most money from the least effort. They are trying to find their "get rich quick" scheme. And every try puts their investment at a loss. Pure greed is controlling the head. They don't care about well detailed games and stories that bring joy to players. They just want to hook those players that get obsessed and addicted to repeated spending in their games. Those players, though fewer in number, will bring in the most money. So that's been their plan.
Personally I like Skull and Bones just as much as Sea of Thieves - but that's probably because I'm a big fan of multiple ships manned by friends vs all on one ship and I'm also not really into PvP... which skull and bones at least lets me opt out of without penalizing me.
It was so hilarious when the game came out to see almost a hundred players Sailing around; The next day I get on to finish upgrading and there was probably 5 players max
making Skull and Bones a survival game killed it for me...i love open world games but i hate survival games.
They probably could have released 3 different games with all the work they've done and each would have been more fun than the final product.
This happens when developers new employees never played the previous titles , these new employees where 2years old when assassins creed pirates came out and never bother to play it or find out why it was so great
Same happened to battlefield
they literally just had to reskin black flag and most would probably be happy
No.i do not like black flag but i love skull and bones.but hey, i do not like single player games anyway.
People don’t want another AC game, it wouldn’t have produce as well as people wanted … better than skull and bones though
@@eurothejii7328you’re a weirdo
@@eurothejii7328 games trash bro
@@TiggaTrey no u
I really hope that somewhere in the world there is a studio that in February 2024, after seeing S&B's failure, started developing the ultimate pirate game that the general public has been looking forward to. There must be one, at least, who has seen this failer as a massive opportunity, right?
Watch, in February pirate Yakuza comes out and it will be better than this game
Wondering why February specifically?
@@raddox7 Because S&B came out in February and the whole world saw its failure.
I think that the mistake they made with this game, is that they wanted more assassins creed but less assassins creed. When they realized it looked too much like Black Flag, they entirely changed its gameplay.
No not at all, it was more like they looked at the numbers. Players liked the ships component of black flag, so they made a game on the ship combat only. It was never supposed to be AC nor was the general consensus amongst players to have another AC copy. Sadly, Ubisoft doesn’t listen to the players, they listen to the stats and data. The proof is everywhere, u play black flag and after each mission a pop up comes up for u to rate each mission. Furthermore, it’s common knowledge that the game was a success thanks and in large to the ship gameplay. Ubi never got around to incorporating that multiplayer ship arena mode into black flag, so they made a game revolving around it. The whole story is a mess that includes devs who didn’t have the creative talent to produce a good pirate game, limited by their scope and focus, wanting a world of warships knock off and executives who in their greed, kept on rejecting iterations of the game leading to the decade long stalemate and release date push back
It's just terrible. Miles behind ASC4
I’d be ashamed if I made something based on another game and still be miles behind it
The old assassins creed games multiplayers are still fighting! Black flag is one of them with its wolfpack mode and other gamemodes!
Theres still discords around!!!!
Just spreading the word!!!
What we wanted: Atlas, the Good Edition
What we got: World of Warships 1700s
The gameplay? Cutting down trees.
Ship boarding? A cutscene.
WTF UBISOFT
The made a store front with a premium price tag.
The did not make a Pirate story with characters, adventure, structure and most importantly AN ENDING.
Even Minecraft has an ending. A goal the work for. Everything else is a self imposed art project
Skull and bones is dress up Dolly's with a graphics that melt you PC. I can think of better ways to have fun.
Ubisoft should just go bankrupt. I feel sorry for all the developers because im a developer myself but their management as a company has gone from excellent to a total joke and extortionate.
They milk every franchise for what its worth and spoil everything that was great about their games.
All they had to do was out of character creator and completely remove the assassin's Creed aspect how they managed to botch all that up is beyond me
It would have been so great if they didn't duck it up. Building your own ship, upgrading it, decorating it inside and out. PvE\PvP zones. Just imagine you could take trophies from fallen enemies to decorate your ship with.
The possibilities are endless. Imagine having perma death races. People start with the same type of ship and during xx amout of days fighting it out for no1 spot. But if your boat is sunk you have to restart. That is just one type of event they could have run.
I wish people like you were in positions to make these ideas come to life
It hits home when you mentioned how the management didn't listen to concerns and issues raised by the workers and surrounded themselves with agreeable people. Name a business where this autocratic management led to a successful company, I'll wait.
It's insane, cause i found this game almost 2 years before it came out and was hoping it will be a huge successor to that of sea of thieves. Turns out Sea of thieves still remains as the best known MMO pirate game.
I really do not get how incompetent people are.
Take Blackflag, slap a progression system on getting different ships aswell as upgrading them, add coop for bossfights, a little pvp mode with the existing stuff and call it a day. Solid gameplay, many new features, get it going. "Building a new IP is hard". How about you branch off from what you had and DEVELOP a new IP. You didn't start from scratch. You had your first game in the IP already, accidently. Just take the feedback of players and incorporate it into a new one. Rinse and repeat. It's really not that hard to get to this conclusion ...
And the launch on steam confirms once again just how much S&B has failed. According to steam db, Black Flag, which is over a decade old, has more active players than the new AAAA pirate game S&B.
The old assassins creed games multiplayers are still fighting! Black flag is one of them with its wolfpack mode and other gamemodes!
Theres still discords around!!!!
Just spreading the word!!
If Sea Of Thieves outdoes you, you know you screwed up big time.
Sea of Thieves is great tho. Rare has done so much good for the game since it came out.
@@Tabulatelk15 good game but toxic playerbase
Sea of Thieves is still garbage as an actual pirate game though.
@@Tabulatelk15 💀you don't play the game
@@MT-qu4tk 💀like the studio
Tbh I have been playing this game and I have been really enjoying it
If they just added more land exploration, especially for the treasure hunting, ect, I feel like this would go a long way. They could add wild animals, skeletons, snakes, all sorts of stuff to just give us something to do. Even cooler would be base building so we could really make our own empires on said land. The game is far too small for the vision they want so I really hope they do massive work on it because I honestly love it but there does need more. Its also too grindy, either, more resources or less resources needed to craft would be nice too, not by much but ya. I feel like the PVE aspect really needs more care shown to it as I really love the PVE aspect of this game. It still gives a good amount of action with the ship fighting and im not into someone else having an unfair advantage just picking on me anyway, thats why I left Sea of Thieves. I believe this game has great potential, if they would actually put the work in, instead of paying people a crap tone of money for half baked concepts and ideas of which are not in the long run worth it.
Why it failed, no ship boarding, no land exploration, stupid looking ships, ridiculous ship weapons, stupid missions. Knowing all this but making the game anyway.
It is sad as so many fans wanted this however there is now a large hole in the market for a smaller studio to tackle this and give fans of black flag what they want. We should never correct greedy companies let them fail and learn why opening up more opportunities for small studios to grow it's the only way we will see GREAT GAMES again.
I was gifted SnB by a friend and ive absolutely enjoyed it ive encountered minimal issues that happen when any game launches and i thoroughly enjoy playing it. It is not black flag and i dont care. Never played Ac. I do play red dead redemption2 which i also enjoy.
you like the diverse cast of characters?
7:08 “they were so often men” i know a kotaku article when i see one
u forgot to mention that while s&b was limping along, there was an entire sea of thieves to ecplore. ubisoft failed to recognize its competition
"FORGET EVERYTHING YOU KNOW ABOUT PIRATES"
I think what really frustrates me is it will be quite a long time before we see another pirate game if at all. Sea of thieves was probably the last quality pirate game to be made, but the game is not entirely an rpg but more about building your own story thru survival mechanics and socializing.
The game is on sale right now for 30 bucks last day I believe. Bought it because I know it is all we got. It’s not what we wanted but it’s what we got. Hopefully I can alternate between SoT and this game along with the pirates strat game long enough until a real fleshed out game comes out. If it ever does…
It's a good game and I still play. So do thousands of other people. Ubisoft even came out saying it has great player retention. It's only a failure on social media/TH-cam levels where everyone hates Ubisoft or just decries 'Oh but black flag did this and black flag did that's when it isn't meant to be black flag at all. Nah, game has strong following and people are still buying especially on consoles.
Strong Copium lol
lol strong “player retention”, don’t kid urself. Players come back cuz they expect the game to change with each update, and each update they are disappointed. Last season had a max of 10 players per server, the average person quit this game in less than 30 minutes of playing. Don’t be gullible, obviously the company behind the game will not provide the truth if it’s bound to hurt them. They’re a a corporate business with goal #1 being to produce money. Why do u think they use these beautiful masqueraded words instead of just going out and saying “This is how many players we have playing the game on average” or “This is how much money the game has made after calculating cost values”. Why? I’ll give u a clue, it’s not cuz of you, it’s cuz that way they can keep their investors happy and eating out from their pockets, and as a side effect, ur out here eating all that garbage spew as well.
I really like this game, and the servers are always full on ps5... It seems the only people who don't like it are content creator's and there's subscribers...
My brother in christ do yourself a favor and try sea of thieves😭
@@WarFoxThunder fucking this, it's even on ps5 now, stop eating shit just to be a contrarian.
I played in 2 rounds of the betas in I think it was early 2023 and the only thing I could say as a positive thing is that.. "well, it doesn't look bad, runs decent", because I was expecting a shitshow, a game struggling to run on my new 6700XT while looking good, but, hey, atleast that wasn't the case. The playtime was limited, 6 hours if I recall correctly and despite playing with friends I spent 5 hours of that just sailing around, gathering stuff, fighting a ship here and there.
In AC4/Rogue sailing around, fighting and boarding ships wasn't boring, because.. you know, both are AC games and you can ACTUALLY board ships instead of getting a cutscene.
This might be saying too much... but imagine if they had just remastered Black Flag?....
I like the game!! It’s fun to play and when the content slows down it give me time to play other games. I don’t feel married to this game like I have felt with other games like Destiny. And yes there is a lot of people who actually do play the game. Every time I play the server is full. But each to there own ✌🏼
There was a time when nearly every game me and my buddies played was a Ubisoft game. I was burned on so many pre orders.. I can’t imagine them ever releasing a game worth checking out again.
How does a game from 11 years ago end up better than a 2024 video game that is trying to do the same thing?!
Imagine being a developer on this project and see its focus shift every year or so.
They could still save this by not making the players force into pvp, they literally had division, and breakpoint which you can progess the world on your own with the option to go co op or pvp. If they implement that. I would surely buy this game
But... they don't force you into PvP. Players can't damage each other unless you opt in to have PvP. There are a couple exceptions to it but they are late game events that players usually aren't contested in anyway. And for co-op, basically the entire game after the tutorial can be done in co-op.
Ubisoft died a long time ago and we're just watching the corpse fall to the ground.
Cause they cared more about risk and reward rather then making a user friendly game
I may be one of the few people who actually enjoyed playing Skull and Bones. I ended up stopping after I had 3 achievements left for online play because there's never anyone to join up with
I played this game during the beta and it was awful. I don’t care I get a closed beta sticker or anything purchasing this game.
Interesting, funny certainly ironic even how none of these teams had ANY idea of what players wanted.
While the original idea was exactly what we wanted, a *Assassins creed Black Flag* without the whole *AC* story.
I would have bought and played it had it been single player, and while I'm not going to make or break a game like this on my own, I'm betting there are many others who felt/feel the same way.
The game doesn't force you into PvP so it could be played like a single player game
They could of literally grab the engine from Black Flag, make a different story and upgraded graphics, and we would of loved it!
Released on steam 2 days ago and it has %60 discount today.
You forgot Ubisoft declaring it was a quadruple A game before release.
The beginning was good but after few missions it was difficult to build your ship and more buying your upgrades then playing
Once Sea of Thieves came out, Ubisoft was done in the pirate market. SoT is so GOOD. It looks incredible and it's extremely fun to play. It has passion, something Ubisoft lacks.
Man, I've seen Ubisoft's downfall from the very beginning. To me, back when I was a kid, I was so proud of Ubisoft, because most of my favorite games ever (Assasins creed, far cry, splinter cell)
were made in Quebec, where I live. They made wonderful games that I used to play for hours on end. I remember playing far cry 4 on launch day. It wasn't the greatest game they made, but I was just a kid back then and it's undeniable that it is a good game overall. Their love for their games showed with their older releases. To me, Ubisoft died when I first played Assasins creed : Valhalla.
I saw that the entire vision of being an Assasin was completely out of the picture. All these years, they made good games about being an Assasin with inner conflicts, but it's now gone. It didn't deserve the Assasins creed name. After that, it only got worse. Rainbow six : Extraction was an amazing game with a beautiful and unique vision and actually really fun gameplay, good progression system, a challenging experience and most of all : I felt the love they put in this unique experience. Something I didn't sense in years. As soon as I heard they would completely stop development on the game, after promising new operators and enemy types in the upcoming months, I completely gave up. No longer would I support them after that. It only got worse from there, you all know : XDefiant, Star wars outlaws, AC Shadows controversy and delay and work abuse. No longer do they have the drive to innovate, they only make games off of their popular IP's because they know damn well the diehard fans don't see how bad they are YET. I believed in them, but my trust has long been killed. Ubisoft will never come back to their original self, they completely lost their vision. They completely pale compared to ACTUALLY good studios who makes great and fun games like : Ghost of tsushima, Deep rock galactic, Helldivers 2 and I can name more because almost everything is better than the slop they dare make us pay for these days. The upper management should be ashamed. Never buying anything from them again unless I can sense that the love and vision they once had miraculously comes back, and we all know it won't. It's only a matter of time now until they shut down. That's what I think from this mess.
An online pvp based pirate game should have been an MMO. Because for it to succeed it is essential that you actually can roleplay as a pirate in a massive open world filled with other pirate players on land and sea. Maybe allow player housing so you could have your own little shack in some harbor. Maybe guilds could build fortresses or something... Like a true living pirate world. Surely 11 years development time and a budget that a compamy like Ubisoft can provide, should make this doable. And its not that complicated, its basically just WoW classic with ships added in. It would have been a wet (!) dream for gamers around the world.
When you have a clean lay-up but you slip and blow out your knees instead.
Triple AAA game and sailing simulator don't go in the same sentence I expected far more than a sailing simulator for this pirate game
I have never finished AC4 because I just tried to build my base in the mid game. I dont even know if the main story was good or not 😂.
It’s because it’s not a pirate game it’s a battleship simulation with pirate style. If you saw any announcement of the game …Ubisoft claimed that it was going to be just like black flag without the assassin theme ( sword fights,plundering other ships , etc) if UBISOFT never said this then nobody would of had an issue but they are the ones that said it was going to be a actual pirate game . That’s the issue
That's what we need to make the game great Skull and Bones New Game Plus, players could transform their island into a thriving hub of power and intrigue by combining island management, right-hand characters, secret societies, and mystical spiritual elements. Here’s how all these features could work together:
Island Ownership and Management
Players would acquire their own island, which they can develop into a personalized stronghold. The island would include buildings for crafting, trade, shipbuilding, and defensive structures. Players would be responsible for managing the island’s economy, ensuring resources are gathered, businesses are thriving, and the island’s defenses are solid. Upgrades to the island would be necessary to unlock more advanced functions, such as expanding production capabilities or increasing trade efficiency.
Right-Hand Character
Once the island is established, players could choose a trusted right-hand character, much like Li Tian Li, to help manage the island. This character would have specific abilities to boost the island’s growth and offer strategic advice. Players could select their right-hand from a variety of unique characters, each with their own skill set, personality, and background. Some might specialize in logistics, others in combat or diplomacy, and their abilities would help enhance trade routes, shipyard productivity, or the island’s defenses.
Secret Societies
Players could align their island with a secret society of their choice, such as the "Order of the Black Tide," "Children of the Abyss," or "Ancient Mariners." Each secret society would offer unique benefits, quests, and spiritual powers tied to the society's ancient lore. For example:
Order of the Black Tide could grant shadowy weaponry and the ability to manipulate the economy or sabotage rivals.
Children of the Abyss might unlock storm-based powers and enhance the island’s sea defenses, allowing the player to summon tidal waves or rainstorms to protect their territory.
Ancient Mariners would provide spiritual guidance, the power to summon sea spirits, and abilities tied to lost artifacts, such as the "Eyes of the Deep" for revealing hidden treasures and routes.
By aligning with a secret society, players would gain not only mystical powers but also influence over the game’s world, able to manipulate trade, sabotage competitors, or gain intel on rival factions and companies.
Divine Weapons and Spiritual Protection
Through the secret society, players could also gain access to divine weapons and spiritual protection. After completing sacred rituals tied to their chosen society, players could unlock powerful weapons like enchanted cutlasses or tridents that carry unique effects, such as summoning ghostly cannons or harnessing elemental powers. Additionally, spiritual protections from guardian spirits could shield the island from attacks, provide buffs to the crew, or even summon visions that guide the player to hidden resources.
Stock, Shares, and Business Ownership
Players would not only control their island but could also engage in a deeper economic system by investing in businesses and purchasing shares in companies. This stock market would be impacted by players' actions-such as raiding or protecting trade routes, influencing prices, or protecting rival companies. Investments could provide passive income or unlock new opportunities to expand businesses on their island, making them a powerful economic player in the world. Players could choose to manage a company, manipulate the market, or sabotage rivals through their secret society’s influence.
The Ultimate Power - Spirit-Touched Captain
By mastering the island, forming strong relationships with the right-hand character, and forging a bond with a secret society, players would unlock the ultimate title of "Spirit-Touched Captain." This would grant the player unparalleled powers-divine weapons, mystical insights, enhanced protection, and the ability to manipulate the economy. They would rule not only the seas but also the world of commerce and secret knowledge, becoming a legendary figure of both spiritual and economic might.
This combination of features would offer players a deep, immersive experience where they can build, manage, and protect their island, wield divine powers, navigate a complex economic system, and interact with a rich web of secret societies and mystical forces.
The failure of Skull and Bones to meet expectations can be attributed to a combination of factors, both internal to Ubisoft and external in the gaming landscape. Here's a detailed breakdown:
1. Prolonged Development Cycle
Announced in 2017, Skull and Bones experienced multiple delays and a drawn-out development period, leading to development hell. This created skepticism among fans and media.
Shifts in vision: The game started as a naval combat spin-off of Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag but underwent numerous redesigns, trying to cater to both single-player and live-service audiences.
2. Lack of Innovation
The game's core mechanics-ship-based combat-appeared similar to Black Flag but lacked significant evolution.
Many previews suggested the gameplay loop felt repetitive, limited primarily to naval battles without substantial on-land exploration or dynamic story elements, which many fans expected.
3. Overemphasis on Multiplayer
The focus on multiplayer live-service elements alienated those who loved the narrative-driven, open-world exploration of Black Flag.
Ubisoft aimed to replicate the success of games like Sea of Thieves, but fans criticized the lack of creative freedom and exploration that made such games successful.
4. Poor Communication and Hype Mismanagement
Ubisoft's marketing struggled to maintain excitement over years of delays, with limited updates and an unclear vision of the final product.
Repeated delays hurt trust and anticipation, with fans questioning whether the game would ever be released.
5. Shifting Market Trends
The success of Sea of Thieves set a high bar for pirate-themed games. Rare's game thrived on community-driven adventures, humor, and player freedom, while Skull and Bones appeared rigid and overly structured.
The rise of other live-service games like Fortnite and Genshin Impact shifted player attention toward genres with broader appeal.
6. Internal Development Challenges
Reports of mismanagement within Ubisoft Singapore, the lead studio, highlighted inefficiencies and leadership challenges.
Forced development obligations: Reports suggest the game had to be completed due to a contract between Ubisoft and the Singapore government, adding pressure to deliver regardless of quality.
7. Missed Opportunities
Fans hoped for a spiritual successor to Black Flag that combined naval combat with on-land exploration, RPG mechanics, and rich storytelling. Instead, Skull and Bones leaned heavily into ship mechanics, which were already criticized for being overly repetitive in previews.
8. Negative Pre-Release Reception
Early gameplay previews drew mixed to negative feedback, with critics calling the game "shallow" and lacking the charm or depth of other pirate games.
Comparisons to older Ubisoft titles and contemporaries like Sea of Thieves often painted Skull and Bones as outdated before its release.
In Summary
Skull and Bones faltered because it failed to deliver what fans wanted-an innovative, narrative-rich pirate adventure. Instead, it focused on naval combat and multiplayer live-service elements, which didn't resonate with players. The drawn-out development, lack of clear vision, and stiff competition further sealed its fate.
Ubisoft's inability to adapt the game to evolving market expectations left Skull and Bones adrift, struggling to stay relevant in a sea of superior alternatives.