Ubisoft says development of Skull and Bones is “going well”

Ubisoft said development on upcoming games for the next fiscal year is progressing well, including the long-delayed multiplayer Pirates game, skull and bones.

On the company’s third-quarter investor call, Ubisoft CFO Frederick Duguet even said the company was “very pleased” with the art direction and where the game is going (thanks, GI.biz).

That sounds like good news for those who have been looking forward to the game, and if it doesn’t get delayed any longer, it means the game could launch anytime between April 2022 and March 2023.

Announced at E3 2017, Skull and Bones has been in development since 2013 and began as a fork of Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag. Instead of being released as a post-launch update, the project became its own title and was developed at Ubisoft Singapore.

Originally announced as a cooperative multiplayer game battling PvP and environmental factors, the game was originally slated for a 2018 release, then pushed back to 2019. In May of that year, the game was again delayed until Ubisoft’s 2020/2021 fiscal year.

Aside from the delay, the game is said to have restarted since the announcement.

A July 2021 report said the game is currently in alpha, with many delays attributable to mismanagement, staff and management changes, company feedback, annual reboots, and the “never clear creative vision behind it”. fact. Kotaku’s report also states that the project exceeded its original budget and cost Ubisoft about $120 million. Employees from other Ubisoft studios are said to have started working on the game.

In January 2022, the game’s associate director Antoine Henry announced his departure from the company to become its associate director after serving as the game’s lead designer from 2014 to 2017.