Skull & Bones finally shows gameplay and brings exactly the multiplayer aspect we always wanted in Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag. However, the game is now several years late and comes quite different than it was announced.
What is Skull & Bones anyway? It was not so easy to answer for a long time and to be honest, it still isn’t.
The first trailer for the pirate adventure appeared at E3 in 2017. The first gameplay was already shown in 2018 and a release was promised for 2019. But then it suddenly went quiet about the game. So quiet that many thought Skull & Bones had maneuvered itself into Davy Jones’s locker.
But now there is fresh, new gameplay, a release on November 8, 2022, and insights into what has changed in the last four years. And quite a lot has changed. Because what in 2018 looked like having taken the ship battles from Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag and packed them into a standalone game with a pinch of Hunt: Showdown has suddenly taken a different direction.
What are the features? Because the multiplayer with its intrigues, the struggle for the fat loot, and boarding enemy ships are no longer that prevalent. Instead, Skull & Bones relies on the following features:
- The ship combat as the main aspect of the game – you rarely leave your ship
- A campaign in a sandbox open world, where you start with a small ship and gradually upgrade it to a formidable warship
- You follow the same pattern of accepting quests, completing missions, upgrading, and taking on more difficult quests
- The entire game is playable solo and offers co-op options to sail together on the hunt
- The PvP component that was emphasized in 2018 is now only optional
- The new focus is on constantly collecting more loot and thereby improving to unlock new things for your ship
Colleague Dimitry Halley presents the game in detail again at GameStar and expresses his concerns.
The new gameplay is in our video:
Different than before, but still exciting
What happened to PvP? If you look at the gameplay from 2018, Skull & Bones still seems like a completely different game. In the old video, you could randomly ally with other players and they could betray you to ultimately get away with the loot from the battle.
This seemed to be the core aspect of the game, but this changed over the last four years. Now PvP is only optional and you don’t really have to flee anymore. Instead, you simply share your open world with enemy ships. What has remained is the hunt for valuable loot that you can still lose.
The optional PvP could be a highlight: Unfortunately, there hasn’t been much to see of it yet. It is also unclear whether it can be motivating in the long term and whether the game mechanics will mesh well or end up in some form of spawn camping.
But the PvP has great potential, especially since the game is coming four years late and just in time.
To catch the big hype from Black Flag, Skull & Bones is a bit late, but currently, the so-called EFT-likes are experiencing a surge that hasn’t been seen before. The games are named after the shooter Escape from Tarkov, but titles like Hunt: Showdown are also good examples.
You can see the gameplay from 2018 here:
PvP matches, where you can lose everything and fight fiercely for loot that only one can have.
Even in the battle royale genre, you go home empty-handed if you don’t survive a round. Still, games like PUBG, Fortnite, and Apex are still very popular.
The fact that many fans of such genres are out there is a big bonus for Skull & Bones. Because while it was still questioned at the original announcement in 2017 whether a Black Flag where you can also lose your valuable loot can be fun, we now know better.
EFT, Hunt, and co. clearly show that with the right twists, a concept can work and keep players engaged where you lose everything. And Skull & Bones is still not as merciless as the mentioned examples.
You only lose your loot: Which is already annoying enough, admittedly. But your ship remains intact and you do not have to start all over again with the hard-earned progress when an enemy ship gives you broadside.
Instead, you just had a mission wasted. Which is initially unfortunate, but definitely manageable. Unfortunately, we still do not know exactly how the mechanics of Skull & Bones work here, but with the right twist, it has great potential to impress long-term and hold fans as long as current EFT games can.
If Skull & Bones wants to work, it needs good PvP
Key point game depth: The question remains how much space the optional PvP will take up in the pirate adventure. Because as nice as open-world, co-op sailing, and a bit of looting and leveling are – to engage long-term, a lot is needed. A fully developed PvP mode could help with that.
And the premise for that is given. There are many different weapons in the game. Special abilities and various tactics are also possible. Currently, we cannot say if that is enough for the PvP to become the highlight it should be. It would be desirable after all the waiting.
Ubisoft has proven multiple times that it can offer this depth. Looking towards shooters, Rainbow Six: Siege shines with tactical diversity and practically endless ways to play a match. The Division with its “Dark Zone” is also a good example of a strong PvP mode, as long as the balancing works.
That the ship combat itself is fun has already been proven by them 9 years ago with Black Flag itself.
If Ubisoft manages to bring both together – loot mechanics and strong PvP – Skull & Bones can become a real pirate affair. A feast not only for PvP fans but also for the setting itself. But we can only find out in November.
What do you think about the new gameplay? Do you like the game better as it is now? Or do you look back at 2018 with a sad eye? Did you even have Skull & Bones on your radar? Feel free to let us know in the comments here at MeinMMO.
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