After many years of development, Ubisoft has confirmed that its long-delayed open-world pirate game, Skull & Bones is still coming, the action game is set to release during Ubisoft's 2022-2023 financial year, marking ten years since its developers began production and the time it could actually release.
Skull & Bones' development began in 2013, and while information on the game itself have been somewhat scarce, details on the game's long development cycle have been all too common. Late 2021, for instance, it was leaked that the long-delayed title would be set in a fictional large open world based on Madagascar and Mozambique with features such as ship tiers, player progression, and customization. Additionally, a recent Ubisoft earnings call revealed that Skull & Bones would now be categorized as a "multiplayer-first" game, which falls in line with Ubisoft's strategy to introduce multiplayer and co-op into its open worlds. Despite costing a large amount of money and several delays, Ubisoft refuses to shut down the project and development is still well underway.
As reported by PC Gamer, Ubisoft has revealed a new Insider program that will allow selected fans to playtest early builds of Skull & Bones and give . While anyone can apply, only a small initial group of testers will be selected and are going to be tasked with testing, reporting issues and bugs, and giving overall general . The program is unpaid and g a non-disclosure agreement is mandatory, but those selected will be able to test out the game beforehand and gain experience in doing so. Ubisoft has stated that the program will be strictly used to get real data and with the addition of seeing what the players will be able to do with the game.
With the new program, it seems likely that fans will now have a better idea of whether Skull & Bones will release within the next year. Skull & Bones was initially scheduled to release in late 2018 on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. The game continued to be delayed two more consecutive years before it was stated that a "new vision" had emerged, resulting in delays as more development time was needed. Now that official testing has begun, Skull & Bones could have a release date, with updates from Ubisoft throughout the year.
Although the game has earned considerable notoriety for its lengthy development cycle, Ubisoft's new program could pave the way for an actual release, as it means that the studio now has a concrete build for the game. It's currently unknown if Ubisoft intends to release Skull & Bones within the next financial year, but players can expect more announcements in the future.
Source: Skull & Bones/Twitter (via PC Gamer)
