Ubisoft has said that development on games coming during its next fiscal year is going well, and this includes the long-delayed multiplayer pirate game, Skull and Bones.
Speaking during the company’s Q3 call to investors, Ubisoft CFO Frederick Duguet even went so far as to say the company is “very happy” with the artistic direction and the progress of the game so far (thanks, GI.biz).
This sounds like good news for those who have been looking forward to the game, and if it doesn’t get delayed again, it means the game could come out any time between April 2022 and March 2023.
Announced at E3 2017, Skull and Bones has been in development since 2013 and started as an offshoot of Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag. Instead of being released as a post-launch update, the project became its own title and went into development at Ubisoft Singapore .
Initially announced as a cooperative multiplayer title with PvP and environmental factors to contend with, the game was slated to be released in 2018 before being delayed into 2019. In May of that year, the game was once again delayed into Ubisoft’s 2020/2021 fiscal year .
Since its announcement, alongside the delays, it was said the game had undergone a reboot.
A report from July 2021 stated the game was currently in alpha and that the many delays can be attributed to mismanagement, staff and management changes, corporate feedback, annual reboots, and the fact there was never a “clear creative vision behind it.” The Kotaku report also stated the project sailed past its initial budget and has cost Ubisoft around $120 million. It was said that employees from other Ubisoft studios had started pitching in on the game’s development.
In January 2022, it was announced that the game’s associate director, Antoine Henry, had left the company after being the game’s lead designer from 2014 to 2017 before becoming its associate director.
