A former employee of Ubisoft has revealed why the pirate MMO Skull and Bones does not have a solo campaign, even though one was originally announced.
Ubisoft’s pirate game Skull and Bones, whose release has been postponed multiple times, will finally be released on February 16, and in just a few days, you will be able to play another beta test of the MMO.
But when Skull and Bones finally sees the light of day after such a long time, it will do so without a solo campaign – even though the development of the MMO has already cost over 120 million US dollars as of 2021 (via Kotaku).
A former employee of Ubisoft who was the game director for Skull and Bones has now explained why there is no solo story.
Skull and Bones was originally supposed to have 3 major modes
What happened to the solo campaign? Back in 2017, Ubisoft stated that Skull and Bones would also have a single-player campaign. In total, there were supposed to be 3 modes in the MMO:
- the solo campaign
- a 5v5 multiplayer mode
- a co-op mode with a “shared open world”
But during the numerous delays, the direction also changed, and the pirate ship set its sails increasingly toward the open world, deprioritizing the other modes.
The focus on the open world seemed safer
What does the former Ubisoft employee say? As Elisabeth Pellen, the former game director of Skull and Bones, told IGN, Ubisoft thought it would be safer and more interesting for players to focus on the open world.
The PvP arena of the 5v5 mode and the open world were developed in parallel, but that was a challenge for the team because many members were working on their own IP for the first time. Therefore, the decision was made to cut everything that the team could not develop in parallel with the open world.
Initially, the 5v5 mode was cut, but the solo campaign was also affected, Pellen reveals: “Building a solo campaign is very time-consuming. We did not have the whole team to deliver a complete solo campaign.”
Another game from Ubisoft that has been postponed multiple times is the promising arena shooter XDefiant: The Free2Play shooter XDefiant misses a great opportunity to outshine Call of Duty – Why that is a good thing
