The game made a big splash with an on-stage reveal and hands-on demo at E3 2017, and returned a year later with a second polished demo, but has since disappeared. Sources are split over what happened. Some say despite the well received E3 blowouts the game effectively didnt exist. Others argue that a version of what was playable at industry events could have launched roughly on time in Early Access and matured in the wild as other games-as-a-service have. Years later the game is still struggling to take shape and people are running on empty. A lot of stuff still doesnt make sense, said one former developer. Just polishing it at this point would be a waste of time.
Skull & Bones was originally supposed to launch in late 2018. Then sometime in 2019. Then sometime after March 2020. Then sometime before March 2022. And now its due to come out before March 2023.
Nearly eight years after it was first conceived, Skull & Bones has blown through its initial budgets. According to three sources, the project has already cost Ubisoft more than $120 million, with that number continuing to balloon as hundreds of developers from other Ubisoft studios continue pitching in to try to ship the game without any more delays. Ubisoft developers receive project-based bonuses based on how well their games do. Those attached to big, nearly annual franchises like Assassins Creed are often assured healthy payouts. But Skull & Bones was so in the hole, sources told Kotaku, that the project had to undergo a financial write-off internally for its developers to still have a shot at any sort of payout. No one wants to admit they fucked up, said one developer. Its too big to fail, just like the banks in the U.S. If Skull & Bones were at a competitor it would have been killed 10 times already, said one former developer.
ore generously, another former developer said that Electronic Arts or Take-Two for example probably wouldnt have attempted it in the first place. Eitherway, Ubisoft has bet big on the multiplayer pirate adventure and is determined to ship it one way or another. In part, thats because live service games have become an increasingly important and lucrative part of the Assassins Creed publishers portfolio. But three sources also told Kotaku that a deal with the Singapore government requires it. In addition to hiring a certain number of people at its Singapore studio in exchange for generous subsidies, they said, Ubisoft Singapore must also launch original brand new IPs in the next few years.