WhenSkull and Boneswas announced, it caught the eyes of fans the world over. Pirate games aren’t exactly the most dominant on the market, and with it being aspiritual successor forAssassin’s Creed Black Flag, it had a lot of potential to lead a resurgence in the underutilized genre.
Notably, though, it wasn’t the onlyAssassin’s Creed-inspired title announced in recent years.Immortals Fenyx Risingcame on the heels ofAssassin’s Creed Odyssey,which is very odd for those who have been watching. Perhaps the writing was on the wall, but whenSkull and Bones' development troubleswere revealed, it added up. Now, there’s a big marketing question of…what exactly isSkull and Bones?
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Skull and Bones Announced Too Soon
Development began in 2013, with the game being announced at E3 2017. Now, fans know during development that the game changed massive a lot. It was first set in the Caribbean, it then took moved on to a mythical location known as Hyperborea, and then finally theIndian Ocean during the Golden Age of Piracy. Gameplay changed from being focused on Naval exploration and ship-to-ship combat, then the game became something likeRustwith land-based survival elements. And now, come September 2020, there was another vision for the game injected somewhere and somehow.
It’s not necessarily uncommon for games to undergo major changes in development, but there is a simple fact here: the game announced and shown off at E3 2017 probably doesn’t exist anymore. The game was announced too soon, and as a result, the game that was announced and the game that may eventually release aren’t the same.Skull and Bonesmay not even exactly be “Skull and Bones” when it does release.
Skull and Bones Represents Ubisoft’s Past
Skull and Bonescame out ofAssassin’s Creed Black Flag, which was a good starting point. Even to this day, it’s one of the most popular games in the franchise, and it walked a fine line between pirate and assassin fantasy.Skull and Boneswas going to dive more into the latter, but as it stands, it wasted the opportunity to do so. If it had released in 2018 as was initially planned, it would have still been relatively easy to draw a line from theE3 2017Skull and BonestoBlack Flag, but 2022 or later, that becomes much harder.
What makes that even more complicated is, once again, no one knows whatSkull and Boneswas, what it is now, and how it differs from the last time it was seen. It may be better now to cut losses, revitalizeSkull and Boneswith a subtitle, and make it stand out as anIP with no strings attached toAssassin’s Creed. After all, it’s connected to the past and now really, as thus far revealed, a push for the future. Whether it can do any of that or not, though, remains to be seen.
Skull and Bonesis in development for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
