At Gamescom 2018, we were able to play the pirate MMO Skull & Bones from Ubisoft. You can find out what the naval battles feel like in Jürgen’s preview report from the fair.
Before the demo session at Gamescom, I had to choose a ship. There were three different vessels to choose from:
- Black Horn: This ship is a melee fighter. It wants to get close to the enemy, bombard them at close range with heavy shrapnel loads, and smash them with its nasty ram at the end. The ideal ship for aggressive pirates
- Jaeger: This light ship is the complete opposite of the Black Horn. The Jaeger is a ship full of long-range guns that deal damage from a distance. The Jaeger doesn’t like melee combat at all.
- Royale Fortune: The tank among the demo ships. This vessel is much bulkier and larger than the other two ships. Therefore, it can withstand a lot and has an impressive battery of guns on each broadside. However, the Royal Fortune is slow and sluggish.
Ships like RPG heroes: The ships roughly resemble the classes in an MMORPG. However, there doesn’t seem to be a support class at the moment.
Each ship also has a special skill. For example, the Royal Fortune can cover an area of sea with continuous fire, forcing any enemy to vacate the area immediately. A tactical advantage!
Since I have no interest in fragile ships or ramming, I chose the thick Royal Fortune.
A Compromise of Realism and Action
How does Skull and Bones control? If you’ve played Assassin’s Creed Black Flag, you’ll quickly get the hang of the pirate ship in Skull and Bones. Just like in the Assassin epic, you look over your captain’s shoulder as he or she steers the ship through the waves.
The controls are so intuitive that I quickly got the hang of them, even though I had to play with a gamepad I was not used to. I steer the ship towards a group of other ships, apparently Portuguese. But never mind, loot is loot and the playtime is limited!
Thanks to the catchy controls, I quickly immerse myself in the game. However, I need to be careful not to sail against the wind and to consider the ocean current. Such realism is necessary.
Grandiose Pirate Atmosphere
As I steer towards my first victim, the grand naval and pirate atmosphere of Skull and Bones unfolds. It starts with each input on the gamepad triggering a spoken command from my captain.
However, since the captain (each ship in the demo had a pre-made captain) speaks softly and the whole crew can never catch everything, the boatswain standing next to her shouts the commands across the deck every time, slightly delayed – and seasoned with a few hearty curses. Then sailors spring into action, and the ship comes alive.
Sailor songs are included: If nothing much happens for a while, the crew starts singing lively sea shanties, which further enhances the already grand atmosphere.
You really can’t get more pirate flair than this!
Wild Naval Battles and Rich Loot
How do the battles go? As soon as I reached my first victim, I sailed alongside it and switched to the cannon view. You then see over the shoulder of the gun crews. The shoulder buttons are used to fire the cannons in succession.
This continues until all cannons are empty and you have to pause to reload. Clever pirates don’t fire everything at once but give the crew enough time to reload. Furthermore, you first have to get used to shooting; the first shots usually go overboard.
However, once you get the hang of it, you can easily blow apart light ships. Especially when I use the Royal Fortune’s special ability and create a real massacre with cannon fire (without reload time) for a short period.
Even more pirate flair! Even in the battles, Skull and Bones maintains the pirate atmosphere. Cannons roar, sailors shout, wood splinters, and projectiles whizz past the mast. I could hardly take my eyes off the spectacle and missed a good shot opportunity more than once.
Here’s how you loot
Sinking isn’t a problem: The naval battles should pay off, but how do I loot? Is it bad when the heavily laden merchant ship sinks into the waves, full of holes?
Not at all, because fortunately a sunken ship always leaves a few drifting chests that I can pick up with a simple button press while passing by. This isn’t realistic, but it’s practical. After all, I don’t want to laboriously pick up loot with the dinghy.
Boarding is key: However, if you want to reap big rewards, you should take the trouble to board a ship. This yields more loot, but is much harder. Anyone can shoot a ship until it sinks!
But being skilled enough to shoot down a rival’s sails and then get close enough to board – that’s something only real pro pirates can do!
No-risk boarding: The boarding combat occurs surprisingly unremarkably. I had expected some kind of minigame where I storm the enemy deck with my captain and engage in wild sword fights with enemy pirates like in Sid Meier’s Pirates.
Instead, the boarding fights happen automatically, and my crew easily defeats the other crew in a cutscene. Ubisoft might later add more action to this.
Jürgen’s Conclusion – Too Bad the Demo Was Over So Fast!
Skull and Bones fully convinced me in the demo. The controls were intuitive, the naval battles were a blast, and the atmosphere was even better than in Black Flag. Unfortunately, the demo session – which lasted about half an hour – was over far too quickly.
I wanted to sink and loot so many more ships! And I didn’t even notice the infamous fort or the allegedly roaming NPC pirates. The atmosphere of Skull and Bones captured me that much.
Hopefully, there will be plenty of content: However, I can imagine that the always-same hunt for loot will eventually become boring. Therefore, Ubisoft must absolutely deliver a tight roadmap of content updates so that the pirate spectacle remains exciting and fresh not only at launch.
The game certainly has the stuff for a good start. It remains to be seen whether it stays exciting for a long time. The sad fate of the also-promising Sea of Thieves is still too fresh in my memory. By the way, you can read in the following article how Skull and Bones plans to avoid this:
