Watching this video from the trenches of Vraks. The siege goes well. Keep up the good content Luke, the Death Korps appreciates your work. P.S. send more heavy bolter shells if you can thanks dude
No one GAF about those live service games. But I was expecting a proper review of Indiana Jones by this time... Lack the integrity to eat your crow, or you're just waiting for a bandwagon to forge an opinion?
Letting everyone know. Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii is coming out in February and not only does it have ship to ship combat. It has boarding and on deck combat. A good pirate game is coming.
@@NoOnesBCE How this uniqueness translates in to player count? Bc i NEVER heard about this project being even remotely as popular as XDefiant - which was able to have peaks of 17-20k even in last timespan.
@@timmoses1772 singapore payed ubisoft after black flag for a pirate game like it. After Ubisoft took the money they tried to get away with not making the game and cancel it but singapore threatened to sue them so ubisoft made a basic game called skull and bones.
Singapore doesn't give two shits about forcing Ubisoft to kill itself. It's trying to grow indigenous video game development talent. By the end of the deal it will have a couple dozen developers who can say they worked for X years on a AAA...AAAA game. Those devs can walk away from the firestorm, start their own game studios etc.
I am guessing its becouse its paid and they dont want to shut down an online only title just 2 years after it came out. Guess they havent figuered out the sci fi thecnology known as offline mode I guess..
Yeah, i actually *really* liked XDefiant for what it is or was, now that we'll never get to play it anymore. Yes, it's free to play. Yes, it had tons of microtransactions. Yes, it got boring pretty fast. Still though, i'm really freaking sad that they're shutting it down and i'm really mad that i never really picked it up when it initially released.
@@Boomer112 Agreed. I really liked it too, especially playing as the class from The Division. I always thought they were the best and insanely fun class. It was like playing as Firebreak from Call of Duty Black Ops
The government of Signapore helped fund the development of Skull & Bones in exchange for Ubisoft setting up a game studio there and assigning said studio to the game. Ubisoft was contractually obligated to release Skull & Bones, and I imagine they are also obligated to support it for X number of years despite it being an utter failure and money sink.
I think Sid Meiers Pirates! is a better pirate game, but there's no competing with the cinematic nature of Black Flag, that feeling when ships smash together. Just too bad it had to be an AC game.
Shut down XDefiant, a game most people don't even realize came out because it was exclusive to Ubisoft's shitty launcher which literally nobody uses or wants to use, shut down The Crew and be sued for doing so, but pledge another year of support for the game that, as of this very second, has 93 players on Steam. I'm not a conspiracy theorist or anything, but Ubisoft has to actively be trying to go bankrupt. There's no other explanation that makes sense at this point.
The thing is that Ubisoft's biggest revenue isn't games sales at the moment, it's governmental grants... They don't open studios around the world with 20000 employees only to make great games... but to make agreements with foreign governments which invest in the company to sustain employement in those regions. For example the governments of Canada and Québec pay a 3rd of the employees salary in the Montreal Studio... There are about 4000 employees there... let's say they make an average of 80,000$/year, that's 400,000,000$/Year in total, that's 133,333,333.33$/year of money from the government... So if 1 project fails in Montreal... 1 project, of, 200 employees, so 16,000,000$/year in salary... it's better for the company to keep that team intact and keep their grants, because even if it's 16,000,000$ down the gutter, it's still amount to 117,333,333$ of government money, that would be cut off if they fired these 200 employees and missed their employment quotas. Meaning that to cover that loss, they would actually need to fire 1467 persons instead of just the 200 of the failed project.
@@bgl11perhaps, and like luke said, it was making more money for sure and with the incoming/cancelled season pass with more interesting characters, one has to wonder if they are enforced to loose that money thanks to the deal with Singapur or is just another mindless decision coming from the higher ups.
@@ZeroTheHunterdo we have any actual data? Or does it just sound like Xdefiant should have made more money? Skull and Bones had a box price too which comes with a higher standard for shutting down I’d say.
A true pirate-themed MMO style game would go incredibly hard. Ship combat similar to World of tanks, ammo types, weak points, armor improvements for ships, crews, captains, etc. Then implement a PvE side similar to EVE Online. Simple resource gathering (mining), merchant/freighter quests, can hire players to escort goods, a whole living breathing economy and world. Nobody could make such a game, without ruining it with microtransactions though.
Correction, Ubisoft Singapore did Ghost Recon Online before Skull & Bones. So S&B was not their first. They did do support/content work for other projects as well.
Imagine the game a had a multicrew system where players/friends could join your ship, help you fight or just chill. Something like Pirates of the Caribbean online had. In that game you could actually board ships and have sword fights with your friends.
Pirates of the Burning Seas was a great piratey MMO back in the day. They had a really good formula going on. It would be nice if that game like that came out, I think it would be a hit.
You forget that people who love their games-no matter what kind of games-usually are less vocal about it and just enjoy playing them. HoegLaw unironically loves Skull&Bones and I don't think he was even paid to promote it, and sunk cost fallacy doesn't apply to him. Plenty of "regular" players are loving it too. The game wouldn't be receiving year2 support if there truly weren't any real fans. A good metric for that is steam reviews with 100+ hours. If a grindy game consistently gets positive or mixed reviews with 100+ hours, it's good enough, especially on sale.
I agree. I won’t lie I enjoyed the game for a bit. I got the second season ship and realized it was worse than the season one ship. I know there is a community doing events and helping players out. There isn’t a lot but I think the game has found a small community. I might even back into it.
this doesn’t surprise me because ubisoft tends to keep supporting stuff even tho they gave up on xdefiant, i think of the division 2 because they’re still “supporting” it but that means like 2 small updates a YEAR
I am one of those people that play Skull and Bones up to several hours per day and theres actually a lot to do in the game now with bosses and quests and an empire that requires work, When I played Black Flag I was thinking to myself that I wish we could get a game with just the ship part, no sword fighting or any of that, just a game where I can sail around and be a pirate, and that is what we got and there are other people like me. I hope this game will run for many years.
You played black flag, a game that not only has better ship combat than skull and bones, but it also has boarding fights and land combat, and you thought to yourself “damn, I wish I could play a game that is worse than this in every aspect!” ??? You aren’t even a pirate in skull and bones, you are whichever ship you pick. That is your character.
As for your Question regarding Wonder Woman: I'd love to get more "Behind the scenes"/"I have insider knowledge" videos in general, dealing with the struggles for big IPs and getting us insight into _why_ even such titans of the industry can sometimes fail so very, very hard.
Im pretty sure the Singapore government partnered with the game since it was their first major game to come out of the country and they were expecting a big return on sales. Its a big reason why this game wasnt just outright canceled during development, its no surprise that this game will continue to get support despite no one actually playing it
Really enjoyed the video; impressed to see how often you find interesting topics to discuss about the game industry on a macro scale. Topic suggestion: How so many trailers and clips of trailers are 98% combat scenes such that they all appear to be the same collection of graphic sparkles, swooshes, explosions, etc. Why can't we see even two or three seconds of a character creation screen or interactions between characters that don't involve pyrotechnics? The combat scenes become SO TEDIOUS!
Alive ? Not even 3K all time peak (For the first AAAA lol). Technically, Suicide squad is alive too. Those games are just on life support until they shut down the machine.
I want a cool in depth pirate sim game. I played AC IV. It's cool, but it's still just an AC game. The last dedicated pirate game I played was Sid Meier's Pirates! It was okay, but I need something more.
I saw it coming, I’ve been following this game since I saw the trailer all the way back in 2018 and at first I thought Ubisoft had cracked it, a multiplayer black flag without the assassins stuff. How more perfect could a pirate game be? And as the years went on I slowly lost more and more hope BUT THEN they dropped the beta on us, my whole friend group played and pre ordered, fell absolutely head over heels (although we knew it wasn’t perfect and riddled with bugs) but now we’re all just biding our time and waiting for the “large ships” to eventually get added to the game. I love it man it reminds me of the rocky start of my other favourite pirate game Sea of Thieves
@@jjtechman101 even if we be incredibly generous and say steam is 10% of their “currently playing” numbers that still means the total is only around 1000 which is beyond embarrassing 😂
I knew that it was going to be here for year 2. We who play the game love it. We who play the game have been playing since BETA. I have 1650 hrs in this game. We have clans. My entire youtube channel is about builds for different ships.
The poison boss actually has mechanics, if you slow down and look during that fight, he signals where his mortar shots are going, just stay out of them and you won't take the poison damage. I think he doesn't fire as many cannons while doing it either. There is some depth to the gameplay if you're looking for it, but it's perhaps not what people were expecting or wanting from a pirate ship game, perhaps. Big thing if you're having trouble with a boss is call out for help, if there are many players on your server they might join in, kind of handy. Admittedly I haven't played in a while so no idea how popular the game still is. I think the game could have been great, but the mismanagement left it as very much lacking, and no idea if it's even possible to fix. The land based hubs are awful to navigate, don't even think about turning that into actual combat.
I put a lot of hours into modded Sea Dogs games, mostly City of Abandoned Ships. I would have really loved something in that vein. Those games were an ugly and buggy mess but really captured the vibe of being a pirate.
Well, this is what they said - but let's not forget the fate of XDefiant. They had big plans for it too. A follow up video a year later would be great to see if Ubi kept their promises... or they still exist.
I think you have the answer to your question, of why this is still going. At its core, there is a genuine game engine and core loop that has been well made in Skull and Bones, but nobody understands at Ubisoft what to do with it. And Ubisoft have done this before, albeit not as badly but similar with setting high expectations and under-delivering but then recovering really well, with The Division games. So hopefully they do achieve a turnaround with Skull and Bones because you are also right, a pirate themed game that is also good is definitely missing right now.
I think it actually makes sense if you look at the big picture - there's 0 competition in the pirate niche. XDefiant couldn't challenge COD at the end so yeah
What you missed in describing the game is that it is close to MMO. At endgame you basically do the grinding cycle to earn money, factories and po8 coins. That can buy you gear, weapons or crafting materials. And you do all that by doing regular missions and seasonal stuff. If you cant buy something then you have to hunt on trade routes. You can find fun there. Sailing is cool. Fighting in storm is epic. I enjoyed it for what it is - pirate ship MMO. What hurts the most is what this could be; Black Flag but online.
Yeah lets use the nemisis system to make a trash ass Wonder Woman game no one wanted instead of making a sequel to the cliff hanger we had with Shadow of war goodjob brain dead investors!
Is there an offline mode yet or an option to delete our progress from their servers? I started it way back when in the beta and wanted to restart but dropped it as soon as I was unable to without making entire new profiles for ubisoft or my console then protentially rebuying it. I want to go back once I can restart it and not a minute sooner
15:14 I'm writing up a pitch idea that I hope I can somehow get out to an indie studio or something. It's an RPG that's like a cross between Tiny Toons and One Piece, all set with a retro 6th gen gamecube/PS2 aesthetic. Crew battles feel like FF10/Paper Mario and ship battles play out tactically, like Xcom. I'd love to get the idea out there, but I'm just some random dude at the moment with no credibility.
Skull & bones can be a lot of fun if you are open for the type of gameplay it offers, i currently have a bit over 265 hours of playtime and still enjoy playing it. Of course there are a lot of problems and design flaws though
I cant take another nordic/samurai game. Thought this was just me lol. A Pirate world is soooo under used and could be so different and fun. Cyberpunk is the best game ever played as its such a different and immersive world, and not open fields by horse
To be fair I didn't mind the gameplay of skull and bones that much, it was fun to an extent however it lacked content. The game felt like a Destiny world but with only pirate ships and boring social hubs, what stopped me playing was how the end game was structured. They promoted it as building an awesome smuggling empire and then all it was, was a glorified repeatable fetch quest.
My gut feel tells me the only reason for extended support at this point is Singapore money. That, or Ubisoft took a massively bad deal (emphasis on SG devs only doing water physics before this travesty of a game). Also, not sure how the SG devs come off this other than "well, we learned how to NOT make a game."
Concord will be remembered for years just because it is probably the biggest failure in gaming industry. Not sure that's how they wanted to be remembered lol.
I think the big advantage S&B had over the others is no-one - not even the studio - thought it would be a success, so they shat out something that could just barely be called a game, knowing and budgeting for the fact player numbers would be low. I would assume new content is so thin and cheap to produce that they're actually pulling in a few pennies from those still playing. Plus, if they were to drop support for it, what would they have left? AC: Shadows is on its way, but it's far from a guaranteed success, and if it outright bombs (which I actually think is unlikely, but it is a possibility), Ubisoft won't be around long enough to put out The Division 3. Their team has to work on something in the meantime; might as well be this.
It's not a shock. They took money from the Singapore government for Skull and Bones; ending it too quickly and firing all the devs would get them dragged into court even if they "technically" fulfilled the contract, so the game is staying on life-support out of necessity.
I'm so sick of hearing how bad this game is because they spent a long time making it, that it's bad because they spent lots of money on it, because they said it was AAAA and because it was $70 and I'm definitely sick of hearing that it's a bad game because it's not Black Flag. Does anyone ever just talk about the actual game?
Well yeah, people did when it came out and said why it was bad. There are tons of reviews. The game hasn't changed since its release mechanically so noone needs to reiterate the details.
Everyone accusing it of being a bad game doesn't actuality play it so all they can do is complain that it's not black flag. Just look at this video. The dude making it hasn't even opened up the entire map and he's still in a small ship. He hasn't even played the game 😂
I was really hoping a trailer for wonder woman at the Game Awards so yeah i would like to learn more about the situation surrounding the Wonder Woman game.
I don't like live services. Not primarily because they tend to be watered down in order to squeeze out more money from people. The biggest reason for me is that the players who do enjoy those games have to rely on that other players also enjoy the game, in order for the game to function. I'm rather slow when it comes to playing games. I like to play games years after I bought them, and play them many times. I don't want to want to go back to a game, only to discover that the game is abandoned because people have stopped playing it, and thus the game is dead. I had the same problem when I subscribed to Netflix. I could watch three seasons out of eight of a TV show, and suddenly when I log in, Netflix has removed all but the last season without warning.
Maybe this is the game that France's top managers forgot about ...... So it survived. But it's too early to tell - next spring's Assassin's Creed will be the deciding point.
Bit to add. Skull and bones cost nothing in IP. Also the team was okay to continue work on it. (Could have been shut down but is a small team(maintinace team)) The over all build leaves it easy... easier to build on and work with. The player base is less vocal. Like no man sky once the rage passes the team is left with; option one... die or option two... with little money continue work. I still don't think they will get a chance to do much as the company on whole is.... in a bad of way. For more life advice drink more beer!
Yes do Wonder Woman, As it was announced it had nemesis system and being only game since the Shadow games I’ve been desperate for another game to use it. Hate Warner for copyrighting it. Then not utilise it in any games since seriously aggravates me. One off the best game mechanics ever designed IMHO. Would be great getting some info on Wonder Woman…. But after you saying it’s had troubles. Now I fear Nemesis won’t be included.
The team working on S&B is, from what we know through public communications, still quite passionate about the game. Who knows, maybe they can pull off a No Man's Sky? Given the games' rocky history, I honestly think it deserves a second chance when the time is right.
Thank you! We who play and enjoy the game are passionate about it as well. These content creators need to let us do what we do and enjoy what we enjoy and stop trying to shit on our game.
Nah mate , Ac Origins was for me the best or at least in that game theres a certain creativity, with secrets and stuff. But i also did play Odyssey eventually finished it cause it was extremely big size map
Frank stone, 40k warhammer marines, indiana jones great circle, cyber punk 2077 with dlc ,jedi survivor are my current games i play And i did try stalker 2 , but its a really demanding game so my i5 processor wasnt enough to hold a decent frame rate ,in fights and big areas my fps was like 5-20 😂😂😂
@@brokendreamchaser39s Origins was great. To be fair though, ancient Egypt and Greece are my 2 favorite historical periods, so I am a bit biased. I think they would have been even better if they hadn't been AC games. The AC stuff in them really doesn't add much, and sometimes even hurts them.
@@stock6600 Understandable. Black Flag was such a great game, not necessarily a good AC game, but a great game. TBH I feel like Black Flag, Odyssey, and Origins would be even better if they weren't AC titles.
I'm hoping the big studios will realize these live service games are too big of a risk and go back to making focused, well-done games. I would also accept them continuing to push harder into failure and allowing smaller devs that actually care about their games to overtake them as the AAA studios. But where we are now with them having the top billet while also putting out garbage is atrocious.
Bro I know it's super surprising tht skull and bones is still around but as a live service doing anything it's helldivers 2 it's literally the only live service thts doing good besides the first person shooters but thts to be expected
Having played seasons 1-4 i can say 4 felt really boring ive enjoyed 1-3 its a chill experience,not sweating to get things done,i dont buy the battle pass every season and still got all the new ships,i hope they spruce it up for 2025,give us man o wars with 2 rows of cannons or something
I think the reason why they didn't add boarding and sword combat is because they knew they were remaking black flag and didn't want to compete with themselves
Thanks to Warhammer 40,000: Tacticus for sponsoring this video! Click here to check out the game: play.tacticusgame.com/LukeStephens
This mobile game is better than the new console game release.
13:30 LOL 😂😭😭😭😂😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Can You Do more WonderWoman News just like Teasers or whatever Thanks Luke ❤ Much love from the Middle East ❤
Watching this video from the trenches of Vraks. The siege goes well. Keep up the good content Luke, the Death Korps appreciates your work. P.S. send more heavy bolter shells if you can thanks dude
No one GAF about those live service games. But I was expecting a proper review of Indiana Jones by this time... Lack the integrity to eat your crow, or you're just waiting for a bandwagon to forge an opinion?
Letting everyone know. Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii is coming out in February and not only does it have ship to ship combat. It has boarding and on deck combat. A good pirate game is coming.
Pvp?
@@dawelsh241 There is a ship battle arena in the game. That might have online capability but I haven't seen anything for that yet.
@@dawelsh241Yakuza/Like a Dragon is solely a singleplayer PvE game franchise.
@@StrongStyleFiction well dang I'm interested
Ooo multiplayer?
We live in a world where Skull and Bones lives longer than Xdefiant
That one is easily explained. Skull and Bones is more unique / has less direct competition.
@@NoOnesBCEexactly
But makes less sense because who actually cares about Skull and Bones?
Look at the reception it got Vs xdeviant @@NoOnesBCE
@@NoOnesBCE How this uniqueness translates in to player count? Bc i NEVER heard about this project being even remotely as popular as XDefiant - which was able to have peaks of 17-20k even in last timespan.
@@szymussmilitaryfreak Yeah I mean, I like Skull & Bones but the numbers don't lie. I was certain that the game was reaching its final hours.
2024 really has felt like 2 years disguised as 1. I could have sworn this game came out last year.
Not even video game related but I've been thinking that as well
Same 😂
February 27, 2024 was release date for season 1
You thinking about the beta the beta was out for testing 3 times lmaoo😊
That's what phone addiction does to a person
Ubisoft "please singapore, nobodys playing it and my stock is crashing"
Singapore "MORE!"
I think this might be right. They made such a bad deal that they even have to support it for a certain time after launch.
Singapore: "What was you said to customers who were concerned about losing access to products they bought? Oh, right. Get used to not owning games."
Ubi singapore pretty much still has to they are tied to the government
@@timmoses1772 singapore payed ubisoft after black flag for a pirate game like it. After Ubisoft took the money they tried to get away with not making the game and cancel it but singapore threatened to sue them so ubisoft made a basic game called skull and bones.
Singapore doesn't give two shits about forcing Ubisoft to kill itself. It's trying to grow indigenous video game development talent. By the end of the deal it will have a couple dozen developers who can say they worked for X years on a AAA...AAAA game. Those devs can walk away from the firestorm, start their own game studios etc.
My favorite part of the game is how the ships have stamina bars. Genius!
I’m guessing it’s the ship crew
Its the ship crew that gets tired manning the deck,why is this so hard to understand? Its a mechanic bound to a game
You don't understand how a ships crew gets tired? That sounds like a YOU problem. 😂
@Dabergyt sail boats are wind powered, crew mates don't have much to do unless they're in a storm or in combat 😂
I'm upset that XDefiant is getting put down like a wounded horse, yet this game is being kept on life support despite clearly being a vegetable.
I am guessing its becouse its paid and they dont want to shut down an online only title just 2 years after it came out. Guess they havent figuered out the sci fi thecnology known as offline mode I guess..
Yeah, i actually *really* liked XDefiant for what it is or was, now that we'll never get to play it anymore.
Yes, it's free to play.
Yes, it had tons of microtransactions.
Yes, it got boring pretty fast.
Still though, i'm really freaking sad that they're shutting it down and i'm really mad that i never really picked it up when it initially released.
@@Boomer112 Agreed. I really liked it too, especially playing as the class from The Division. I always thought they were the best and insanely fun class. It was like playing as Firebreak from Call of Duty Black Ops
It will go down next year
The government of Signapore helped fund the development of Skull & Bones in exchange for Ubisoft setting up a game studio there and assigning said studio to the game.
Ubisoft was contractually obligated to release Skull & Bones, and I imagine they are also obligated to support it for X number of years despite it being an utter failure and money sink.
Black Flag is the best Pirate game of all time. Incredible game.
There's no competition mate... Ofc it's the best. Not just as a pirate game but as a game.
I think Sid Meiers Pirates! is a better pirate game, but there's no competing with the cinematic nature of Black Flag, that feeling when ships smash together. Just too bad it had to be an AC game.
Its way more fun but it hardly a pirate game sea of thieves was alright
Not even close the ship controls is trash.
They could not make Black Flag today... And that literal they literally could not make it again, they would fail
And somehow Palpatine returned again.
Yeah he does that a lot, it's honestly getting old at this point.
Shut down XDefiant, a game most people don't even realize came out because it was exclusive to Ubisoft's shitty launcher which literally nobody uses or wants to use, shut down The Crew and be sued for doing so, but pledge another year of support for the game that, as of this very second, has 93 players on Steam.
I'm not a conspiracy theorist or anything, but Ubisoft has to actively be trying to go bankrupt. There's no other explanation that makes sense at this point.
They're keeping this one alive because of contractual obligations. SSKTJL remained alive as long as it has for the same reason.
The thing is that Ubisoft's biggest revenue isn't games sales at the moment, it's governmental grants... They don't open studios around the world with 20000 employees only to make great games... but to make agreements with foreign governments which invest in the company to sustain employement in those regions.
For example the governments of Canada and Québec pay a 3rd of the employees salary in the Montreal Studio... There are about 4000 employees there... let's say they make an average of 80,000$/year, that's 400,000,000$/Year in total, that's 133,333,333.33$/year of money from the government...
So if 1 project fails in Montreal... 1 project, of, 200 employees, so 16,000,000$/year in salary... it's better for the company to keep that team intact and keep their grants, because even if it's 16,000,000$ down the gutter, it's still amount to 117,333,333$ of government money, that would be cut off if they fired these 200 employees and missed their employment quotas.
Meaning that to cover that loss, they would actually need to fire 1467 persons instead of just the 200 of the failed project.
Not only there's around 100 players playing, but the ALL TIME peak is 2k in steam,
@@agahnim0196 So basically, Ubisoft is on welfare and sells games on the side💀
Nah, Ubisoft is just being led by incompetent grifters chasing after the "latest" (read as 8-10 year old) trends
I legit forgot this game existed, i wonder why they put down Xdefiant instead of skulls and bones.
I also wonder that, surely it was making more money than this?
Maybe part of the deal with Singapore?
@@LukeStephensTVmakes sense with the whole Ubisoft buy out theory
@@bgl11perhaps, and like luke said, it was making more money for sure and with the incoming/cancelled season pass with more interesting characters, one has to wonder if they are enforced to loose that money thanks to the deal with Singapur or is just another mindless decision coming from the higher ups.
@@ZeroTheHunterdo we have any actual data? Or does it just sound like Xdefiant should have made more money? Skull and Bones had a box price too which comes with a higher standard for shutting down I’d say.
The infamous "Quadruple AAAA gaming" 😭💀
Remember xdefiant just had it's best season ever with season 3 and guess what?there closing it!!!!
A true pirate-themed MMO style game would go incredibly hard.
Ship combat similar to World of tanks, ammo types, weak points, armor improvements for ships, crews, captains, etc.
Then implement a PvE side similar to EVE Online. Simple resource gathering (mining), merchant/freighter quests, can hire players to escort goods, a whole living breathing economy and world.
Nobody could make such a game, without ruining it with microtransactions though.
You mean like Naval Action?
Check out Naval Action.
Correction, Ubisoft Singapore did Ghost Recon Online before Skull & Bones. So S&B was not their first. They did do support/content work for other projects as well.
Another great game that they axed
Imagine the game a had a multicrew system where players/friends could join your ship, help you fight or just chill. Something like Pirates of the Caribbean online had. In that game you could actually board ships and have sword fights with your friends.
Pirates of the Burning Seas was a great piratey MMO back in the day. They had a really good formula going on. It would be nice if that game like that came out, I think it would be a hit.
You forget that people who love their games-no matter what kind of games-usually are less vocal about it and just enjoy playing them. HoegLaw unironically loves Skull&Bones and I don't think he was even paid to promote it, and sunk cost fallacy doesn't apply to him. Plenty of "regular" players are loving it too. The game wouldn't be receiving year2 support if there truly weren't any real fans.
A good metric for that is steam reviews with 100+ hours. If a grindy game consistently gets positive or mixed reviews with 100+ hours, it's good enough, especially on sale.
I agree. I won’t lie I enjoyed the game for a bit. I got the second season ship and realized it was worse than the season one ship. I know there is a community doing events and helping players out. There isn’t a lot but I think the game has found a small community. I might even back into it.
Like A Dragon Pirate Yakuza In Hawaii will be the real AAAA pirate game and successor to AC4 we've all been waiting for
Is it multiplayer?
@@deniz5015hopefully it’s just an aspect of the game rather than being an always online mmo.
@ yeah true
@@deniz5015 it will be a singleplayer game, like every other Like A Dragon game
this doesn’t surprise me because ubisoft tends to keep supporting stuff even tho they gave up on xdefiant, i think of the division 2 because they’re still “supporting” it but that means like 2 small updates a YEAR
They probably had this already in the chamber so they figured they could squeek out a little more money before going into the dark night.
Sometimes games just get better with more updates im all for a redemption story
Skull and Bones can do what Skull and Bones wants, I got all the pirate adventure I need with Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii coming out.
I am one of those people that play Skull and Bones up to several hours per day and theres actually a lot to do in the game now with bosses and quests and an empire that requires work, When I played Black Flag I was thinking to myself that I wish we could get a game with just the ship part, no sword fighting or any of that, just a game where I can sail around and be a pirate, and that is what we got and there are other people like me. I hope this game will run for many years.
This reads like an AI bot
@ArtilleryAffictionado1648 It's perfect Norwenglish hahahaha
You played black flag, a game that not only has better ship combat than skull and bones, but it also has boarding fights and land combat, and you thought to yourself “damn, I wish I could play a game that is worse than this in every aspect!” ??? You aren’t even a pirate in skull and bones, you are whichever ship you pick. That is your character.
I don't disagree with u
As for your Question regarding Wonder Woman:
I'd love to get more "Behind the scenes"/"I have insider knowledge" videos in general, dealing with the struggles for big IPs and getting us insight into _why_ even such titans of the industry can sometimes fail so very, very hard.
Im pretty sure the Singapore government partnered with the game since it was their first major game to come out of the country and they were expecting a big return on sales.
Its a big reason why this game wasnt just outright canceled during development, its no surprise that this game will continue to get support despite no one actually playing it
13:37 you should have added the group facepalm meme
I imagine the game is still standing due to the seal with the Singapore Government.
Really enjoyed the video; impressed to see how often you find interesting topics to discuss about the game industry on a macro scale.
Topic suggestion:
How so many trailers and clips of trailers are 98% combat scenes such that they all appear to be the same collection of graphic sparkles, swooshes, explosions, etc. Why can't we see even two or three seconds of a character creation screen or interactions between characters that don't involve pyrotechnics? The combat scenes become SO TEDIOUS!
Alive ? Not even 3K all time peak (For the first AAAA lol). Technically, Suicide squad is alive too. Those games are just on life support until they shut down the machine.
How do you know that, where did you get that information? If you are refering to Steam, then the game was out a year before it was added on Steam
@@torgundalthe game hasn’t been out a year what are you talking about 😂
@@ScottyDo3sntKnow well its two months away from a year hehe
@@torgundal and it was added to steam like 3 months ago so your argument makes no sense
At least I can give suicide squad credit for having a offline mode
We need a video game based of of the song, "Pirates" by Emerson, Lake and Palmer
Xdefiant is cancelled for no reason and this game continues to not sail along yet is still getting airdropped food and fuel and water, classic ubisoft
I can't wait for Ubisoft to fail at this point
"Throughout battle passes and content drops, I alone am the live service one"
Come February and you can instead play as an amnesic yakuza pirate captain in the Hawaiian sea.
Bro I forgot Skull & Bones even existed.
They probably have to keep it alive due to some contract stipulation with the Singapore government.
I think S&B is not the best game in the world, but it is underrated. Not surprised that some people keep playing it.
I want a cool in depth pirate sim game. I played AC IV. It's cool, but it's still just an AC game. The last dedicated pirate game I played was Sid Meier's Pirates! It was okay, but I need something more.
i’m brazilian and i just love your diction! i just can understand everything! it’s so clean 💀
Ubisoft set themselves up to fail when they invited the king of Live Service Doom Tubing to their preview event
Reason xdefient got shut down and this didn't is simple, xdefient was a free game, this isnt
I saw it coming, I’ve been following this game since I saw the trailer all the way back in 2018 and at first I thought Ubisoft had cracked it, a multiplayer black flag without the assassins stuff. How more perfect could a pirate game be? And as the years went on I slowly lost more and more hope BUT THEN they dropped the beta on us, my whole friend group played and pre ordered, fell absolutely head over heels (although we knew it wasn’t perfect and riddled with bugs) but now we’re all just biding our time and waiting for the “large ships” to eventually get added to the game. I love it man it reminds me of the rocky start of my other favourite pirate game Sea of Thieves
i enjoyed Skull & Bones. Fighting against a boss ship in high seas with 20 other players was fun.
Damn, you had 80% of skull and bones’ total playerbase fighting the same boss?
@@sound4117 ha ha
I checked yesterday (dec 19th) and there were 104 people currently playing.
💀
That's on steam most people own it on different platforms that don't have charts
It didn't launch on steam until much later
@@jjtechman101 even if we be incredibly generous and say steam is 10% of their “currently playing” numbers that still means the total is only around 1000 which is beyond embarrassing 😂
If they made the other 2/3 of the game, I think I'd buy it.
Best thing about skull and bones is the soundtrack
Agreed, The background score during gameplay is awesome!
Man if they kept Steep going as long as they did I'm convinced Ubisoft will keep anything rolling.
Yet they drop xdefiant like a sack of puppies and left it to die
I knew that it was going to be here for year 2. We who play the game love it. We who play the game have been playing since BETA. I have 1650 hrs in this game. We have clans. My entire youtube channel is about builds for different ships.
There is no way this game is brining in more revenue than xdefiant was. No wonder ubislop is going bankrupt.
The poison boss actually has mechanics, if you slow down and look during that fight, he signals where his mortar shots are going, just stay out of them and you won't take the poison damage. I think he doesn't fire as many cannons while doing it either. There is some depth to the gameplay if you're looking for it, but it's perhaps not what people were expecting or wanting from a pirate ship game, perhaps. Big thing if you're having trouble with a boss is call out for help, if there are many players on your server they might join in, kind of handy. Admittedly I haven't played in a while so no idea how popular the game still is.
I think the game could have been great, but the mismanagement left it as very much lacking, and no idea if it's even possible to fix. The land based hubs are awful to navigate, don't even think about turning that into actual combat.
I put a lot of hours into modded Sea Dogs games, mostly City of Abandoned Ships. I would have really loved something in that vein. Those games were an ugly and buggy mess but really captured the vibe of being a pirate.
Game was way better than I expected
Same!
Well, this is what they said - but let's not forget the fate of XDefiant. They had big plans for it too. A follow up video a year later would be great to see if Ubi kept their promises... or they still exist.
I think you have the answer to your question, of why this is still going. At its core, there is a genuine game engine and core loop that has been well made in Skull and Bones, but nobody understands at Ubisoft what to do with it. And Ubisoft have done this before, albeit not as badly but similar with setting high expectations and under-delivering but then recovering really well, with The Division games. So hopefully they do achieve a turnaround with Skull and Bones because you are also right, a pirate themed game that is also good is definitely missing right now.
I think it actually makes sense if you look at the big picture - there's 0 competition in the pirate niche. XDefiant couldn't challenge COD at the end so yeah
What you missed in describing the game is that it is close to MMO. At endgame you basically do the grinding cycle to earn money, factories and po8 coins. That can buy you gear, weapons or crafting materials. And you do all that by doing regular missions and seasonal stuff. If you cant buy something then you have to hunt on trade routes.
You can find fun there. Sailing is cool. Fighting in storm is epic. I enjoyed it for what it is - pirate ship MMO. What hurts the most is what this could be; Black Flag but online.
Why would you play S&B over Sea of Thieves
@@Nico78Not Casue there is no progression is Sea of Thieves. It was boring to me playing alone. I still play it with friends from time to time tho.
@Nico78Not because sea of thieves is a fortnite cartoon. 😂
Yeah lets use the nemisis system to make a trash ass Wonder Woman game no one wanted instead of making a sequel to the cliff hanger we had with Shadow of war goodjob brain dead investors!
I second the pirate genre Renaissance
Is there an offline mode yet or an option to delete our progress from their servers? I started it way back when in the beta and wanted to restart but dropped it as soon as I was unable to without making entire new profiles for ubisoft or my console then protentially rebuying it. I want to go back once I can restart it and not a minute sooner
15:14 I'm writing up a pitch idea that I hope I can somehow get out to an indie studio or something. It's an RPG that's like a cross between Tiny Toons and One Piece, all set with a retro 6th gen gamecube/PS2 aesthetic. Crew battles feel like FF10/Paper Mario and ship battles play out tactically, like Xcom. I'd love to get the idea out there, but I'm just some random dude at the moment with no credibility.
Skull & bones can be a lot of fun if you are open for the type of gameplay it offers, i currently have a bit over 265 hours of playtime and still enjoy playing it.
Of course there are a lot of problems and design flaws though
Luke is the king of fake laughter
Ubisoft riding the skinny dying horse that is Skull Bones, just like Radahn keeping Leonard alive but way funnier😂
I cant take another nordic/samurai game. Thought this was just me lol. A Pirate world is soooo under used and could be so different and fun. Cyberpunk is the best game ever played as its such a different and immersive world, and not open fields by horse
Y'know, Valve has a cancelled space pirate game called Stars of Blood. If they were to revive it one day, they could print billions.
Skull and Bones is secretly a good fun game I enjoyed playing it a lot.
Skull & Bones being the last man standing amongst dead games this year is extremely poetic.
To be fair I didn't mind the gameplay of skull and bones that much, it was fun to an extent however it lacked content. The game felt like a Destiny world but with only pirate ships and boring social hubs, what stopped me playing was how the end game was structured. They promoted it as building an awesome smuggling empire and then all it was, was a glorified repeatable fetch quest.
My gut feel tells me the only reason for extended support at this point is Singapore money. That, or Ubisoft took a massively bad deal (emphasis on SG devs only doing water physics before this travesty of a game).
Also, not sure how the SG devs come off this other than "well, we learned how to NOT make a game."
People forgetting about Concord ❌
People forgetting about Skull and Bones ✅
Concord will be remembered for years just because it is probably the biggest failure in gaming industry. Not sure that's how they wanted to be remembered lol.
Concord, who?
Don't answer.
@ lol
Someone may have said it already but if you love pirates black sails is an excellent watch one of my favs
I think the big advantage S&B had over the others is no-one - not even the studio - thought it would be a success, so they shat out something that could just barely be called a game, knowing and budgeting for the fact player numbers would be low. I would assume new content is so thin and cheap to produce that they're actually pulling in a few pennies from those still playing.
Plus, if they were to drop support for it, what would they have left? AC: Shadows is on its way, but it's far from a guaranteed success, and if it outright bombs (which I actually think is unlikely, but it is a possibility), Ubisoft won't be around long enough to put out The Division 3. Their team has to work on something in the meantime; might as well be this.
It's not a shock. They took money from the Singapore government for Skull and Bones; ending it too quickly and firing all the devs would get them dragged into court even if they "technically" fulfilled the contract, so the game is staying on life-support out of necessity.
Somehow palpatine returned
So is it another year of support like XDefiant wasn't closing down, or an actual year of support?
@Luke I'd love to hear about the (potential trainwreck) Wonder Woman game!
The 4 people are going to be happy
I'm so sick of hearing how bad this game is because they spent a long time making it, that it's bad because they spent lots of money on it, because they said it was AAAA and because it was $70 and I'm definitely sick of hearing that it's a bad game because it's not Black Flag.
Does anyone ever just talk about the actual game?
Well yeah, people did when it came out and said why it was bad. There are tons of reviews. The game hasn't changed since its release mechanically so noone needs to reiterate the details.
Everyone accusing it of being a bad game doesn't actuality play it so all they can do is complain that it's not black flag. Just look at this video. The dude making it hasn't even opened up the entire map and he's still in a small ship. He hasn't even played the game 😂
@@Dabergyt If it isn't a bad game, why is it that noone plays it?
The delusion is strong in you.
@Nico78Not funny thing is I'm playing in a full lobby as we speak. The delusion is stronger in you. Have a great day!
Please talk more about the Wonder Woman game troubles. I saw a story that said that 2026 for a finished game would be “generous”
I was really hoping a trailer for wonder woman at the Game Awards so yeah i would like to learn more about the situation surrounding the Wonder Woman game.
Wait, why am I watching a 30 minute Skull and Bones video when you have insider information on Wonder Woman?
I don't like live services. Not primarily because they tend to be watered down in order to squeeze out more money from people. The biggest reason for me is that the players who do enjoy those games have to rely on that other players also enjoy the game, in order for the game to function. I'm rather slow when it comes to playing games. I like to play games years after I bought them, and play them many times. I don't want to want to go back to a game, only to discover that the game is abandoned because people have stopped playing it, and thus the game is dead.
I had the same problem when I subscribed to Netflix. I could watch three seasons out of eight of a TV show, and suddenly when I log in, Netflix has removed all but the last season without warning.
Maybe this is the game that France's top managers forgot about ......
So it survived. But it's too early to tell - next spring's Assassin's Creed will be the deciding point.
"Dark science, cloning, secrets only the Sith know."
LMAO bro is like: "this game is BAD, BUT CONCORD BRO..."
I love these videos 😂😂
You never know, they might pull a "No Mans Sky"
I didn't even know this was out yet
Bit to add. Skull and bones cost nothing in IP. Also the team was okay to continue work on it. (Could have been shut down but is a small team(maintinace team)) The over all build leaves it easy... easier to build on and work with. The player base is less vocal. Like no man sky once the rage passes the team is left with; option one... die or option two... with little money continue work. I still don't think they will get a chance to do much as the company on whole is.... in a bad of way. For more life advice drink more beer!
Yes do Wonder Woman, As it was announced it had nemesis system and being only game since the Shadow games I’ve been desperate for another game to use it. Hate Warner for copyrighting it. Then not utilise it in any games since seriously aggravates me. One off the best game mechanics ever designed IMHO. Would be great getting some info on Wonder Woman…. But after you saying it’s had troubles. Now I fear Nemesis won’t be included.
I'm happy for the remaining 250 or so players, even when I know their minds are in a vegetative state.
Just remake Sid Meier's Pirates already!
That game had everything.
This only launched in February this year ? No way !
I don’t think it’s all that impressive considering there’s a contract with I think the Taiwanese government floating around.
The team working on S&B is, from what we know through public communications, still quite passionate about the game. Who knows, maybe they can pull off a No Man's Sky? Given the games' rocky history, I honestly think it deserves a second chance when the time is right.
Thank you! We who play and enjoy the game are passionate about it as well. These content creators need to let us do what we do and enjoy what we enjoy and stop trying to shit on our game.
Monkey island looking at you like ☠️☠️☠️
What was the last good Ubisoft game? For me it was Odyssey.
Nah mate , Ac Origins was for me the best or at least in that game theres a certain creativity, with secrets and stuff. But i also did play Odyssey eventually finished it cause it was extremely big size map
Frank stone, 40k warhammer marines, indiana jones great circle, cyber punk 2077 with dlc ,jedi survivor are my current games i play
And i did try stalker 2 , but its a really demanding game so my i5 processor wasnt enough to hold a decent frame rate ,in fights and big areas my fps was like 5-20 😂😂😂
Unironically, Black Flag. Maybe For Honor if it was released later? Not sure
@@brokendreamchaser39s Origins was great. To be fair though, ancient Egypt and Greece are my 2 favorite historical periods, so I am a bit biased. I think they would have been even better if they hadn't been AC games. The AC stuff in them really doesn't add much, and sometimes even hurts them.
@@stock6600 Understandable. Black Flag was such a great game, not necessarily a good AC game, but a great game. TBH I feel like Black Flag, Odyssey, and Origins would be even better if they weren't AC titles.
I'm hoping the big studios will realize these live service games are too big of a risk and go back to making focused, well-done games. I would also accept them continuing to push harder into failure and allowing smaller devs that actually care about their games to overtake them as the AAA studios. But where we are now with them having the top billet while also putting out garbage is atrocious.
Bro I know it's super surprising tht skull and bones is still around but as a live service doing anything it's helldivers 2 it's literally the only live service thts doing good besides the first person shooters but thts to be expected
Having played seasons 1-4 i can say 4 felt really boring ive enjoyed 1-3 its a chill experience,not sweating to get things done,i dont buy the battle pass every season and still got all the new ships,i hope they spruce it up for 2025,give us man o wars with 2 rows of cannons or something
Ubisoft is usually pretty good in continuing their games, I mean even For Honor is still getting updates
For Honor is fun.... Even when each updates makes the heroes less unique
I think the reason why they didn't add boarding and sword combat is because they knew they were remaking black flag and didn't want to compete with themselves