Ubisoft has confirmed that the pirate adventure game Skull & Bones, which has been in development since 2013, will finally be released during the next fiscal year, that is, in April 2022 – March 2023.

The development of Skull & Bones began back in 2013, after players reacted very positively to the naval battles in Assassins Creed IV: Black Flag. The project was developed by Ubisoft Singapore and at first it seemed to be just an expansion for Assassin’s Creed IV, then an MMO spin-off called Black Flag Infinite. Time passed, the game changed locations (Caribbean, fantasy world, Indian Ocean), mechanics, engines… The project was developed by Ubisoft Berlin, Ubisoft Chengdu, Ubisoft Kyiv, Ubisoft Paris and Ubisoft Philippines…

Skull&Bones was officially announced at E3 2017, that is, 5 years ago. There were even several gameplay videos, one of which can be seen below. And then the game seemed to be forgotten.

In the fall of 2020, Skull & Bones was relaunched once again. And sent “in a new direction”, whatever that means. And finally, the game, which many call Skull & Bones the most expensive mistake of Ubisoft, is being talked about again.

“This is a very promising new IP, focused primarily on multiplayer, which is in line with our strategy to offer players a multiplayer competitive and cooperative game in a large open world in a gorgeous fantasy environment,” says Frederic Duguet, CFO of Ubi. – “Of course, the development was a bit delayed, but now we are very pleased with the artistic direction and progress of the game.”

According to the data concerning the 2020 “reboot”, Skull & Bones is now a service game. Players are promised a game world that will change over time in accordance with the collective actions of the community. In addition, Skull & Bones seems to have elements of survival and construction games.

Skull & Bones is one of many Ubisoft projects that have fallen into production hell. The Settlers has been in development for quite a long time, Beyond Good and Evil 2 has been in development for more than 8 years, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Extraction has been postponed several times, and the fate of Prince of Persia is still unknown: The Sands of Time Remake and so on.

There are also troubles with new releases. Far Cry 6 showed very moderate results, Riders Republic did not interest the players, instead of the new Assassin’s Creed we are offered another, quite fantasy DLC Dawn of Ragnarök. And then there is this incomprehensible story with NFT. Maybe it’s time to change something, and Ubisoft?