While fortunes have improved a little bit for Ubisoft since the successful launch of Assassin’s Creed Shadows, there’s no escaping the fact that it was on a torrid run before that. One of several underperforming projects during that rough patch was co-op pirate game Skull and Bones – designed to rival the beloved Sea of Thieves, it fell horrendously short at launch. Amazingly though, it’s still plowing on. What’s even more amazing is that I’ve just seen its Year 2 roadmap, and it looks genuinely impressive.
With extremely disappointing critic scores (our Skull and Bones review among them) and what appeared to be mediocre sales and player counts, I fully expected Ubisoft’s co-op game to be on the chopping block. When the genuinely enjoyable arena shooter XDefiant was sentenced to death, I thought Skull and Bones would soon follow.
Imagine my surprise then when reports emerged claiming that it would get a second year of support. Now imagine my complete astonishment today, because those reports have turned out to be true – and Year 2 of Skull and Bones actually looks… great? Due to my already busy schedule of live service games, the reception it got at launch, and probably some bitterness that Ubi could’ve just remastered my favorite Assassin’s Creed game, Black Flag, and ended up with a better pirate game, I’ve had zero interest in playing Skull and Bones. But even I have to admit that this Year 2 roadmap is pretty strong.
Season 1, which begins this week, kicks things off with some big new features and improvements. Item Ascension is a new mechanic that lets you upgrade and add powerful mods to pieces of gear. World Tiers adds a new layer of difficulty for veteran seadogs and gives them a chance of earning already Ascendant rewards. A new medium ship type, the Schooner, is arriving. Empires have gone under the microscope, with improvements to the Helm and a new upgrade tree to expand your reach further. And finally, available mid-season, is Death Tides – a proper, dedicated PvP experience that offers a team-based objective mode where you can capture points or take out your enemies to win.
Skull and Bones Year 2 Season 1 launches Tuesday, April 15. You can read the full patch notes for the update here. However, there’s a lot more coming this year.
Season 2 offers a new encounter with the Megafort – an enormous, well-defended fortress that’s going to throw all manner of long and short-range attacks at you. This season will also deliver a brand new ship that’s bigger and brawnier than anything that’s come before it. The Frigate is the first ever large-sized ship in Skull and Bones, and it’s a behemoth packed with cannons.
Season 3 could potentially be the most transformational for Skull and Bones. While it introduces a new Officers system, it also finally takes you off of the waves and onto the dry stuff. That’s right, land combat is coming to the game – a huge aspect that was missing compared to its main rival, Sea of Thieves.
Finally, Season 4 will introduce another large ship to go alongside the Frigate, and in the spirit of going big, the Kraken will be added as a brand new sea monster. The Kraken will be the largest creature the game has seen by far. A revamped hunting system will also be arriving in Season 4.
Of course, all of that is spaced out over the next 12 months or so, but that’s a pretty impressive lineup of content. Massive ships, giant sea monsters, a proper PvP mode, land combat, and everything in between should see Skull and Bones make a significant step towards being a genuine Sea of Thieves rival. Will it dethrone it? I highly doubt that. But despite its ‘flop’ status, it’s soldiering on with some huge new features, cool content, and major improvements and reworks – we’ve seen some pretty crazy redemption arcs over the years, so maybe this could be the latest.
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