"are you controlling the ship or the pirate?" I can envision at least 500 meetings with the producers to figure out that exact question over the 6 years of development
The direction they headed into open world pvpve with a grind system is very good. Its just they could have added a little more to the land gameplay so the main audience will be pleased
26yo Developer here! I have been actively programming since 14yo and i got interested at 9. I am always at my current task with full enthusiasm, i just love prgramming, DevOps and computers - i constantly do it, think about it or read and learn new things for it. I am very happy i am not in game dev, even when i was able to collect some experience in Cry, UDK3, Quake, Ogre & Unity3d. Actually i started this because i got interested in World of Warcraft emulation using MaNGOS/TrinityCore (C++) as i was running my own server, writing fixes for the TrinityCore FOSS repo and developing web-systems for TrinityCore - so that is a pretty strong gaming background i would guess. If you ever played death knight on a private server you will have enjoyed my work! :) When my (first) employer started to block expertise and do LOTS of unnecessary revisions, changes and dumbo decisions i just felt my fire going off. I am still pursuing my personal projects as i always did but i just changed the way i approach my carreer. I experienced a LOT of times that i propose a big improvement or workflow that is met if desinterest and that deciders push for technically really bad decisions. While other companies embrace technical limitations of their architecture i experienced it a LOT that companies want the developers to do magic tricks and fix their ol pile of spaghetti code. I once had a CTO tell me that package managers like NPM or Composer install random versions, he never understood what a lock file were for no matter how ofthen i tried. Same CTO also told me that ORM is very bad, slow and uncontrollable, he did take every opportunity to bash frameworks like Laravel & their contributors because he is obviously above them. He also wrote his own backend in PHP, it was VERY slow, full of copy paste third party code, full of dubious Queries and injections, everything was full of require_once as well as global variables and shiate literally. Different company CTO wants to explain to me why nullable return type in PHP and programming is bad in general and why we should only use exceptiions / throw from now on - no, i am not kidding with this one. Same company i am employed as junior (what they made explicitly clear because i am such a noob), i did have to explain to my CTO and team the difference between EXPOSE and PORT after explaining the difference between an Image and a Container in Docker for like the 100th time. Same company, i constantly cross-reference EVERYTHING so in every Ticket, Task or Pull Request there is every Link and a clear history of what exists and what happened. For example in a Pull Request i will always copy over any description from and link the Ticket / Task as well as any related Pull Request, Commit or line of code. I had this co worker who would only half-read chat messages and ignore Ticket / Task & PR descriptions. LIke the information was there literally, as you can see from the history/versioning, and he starts asking if i can shoot him the link. Same dude asked me something about a framework and issue he has. I answered with a detailed explaination, a code example as well as the link to any documentations that might be interesting to his inquiry. I did take like 20 minutes to write up a quality message for him and he just replied in 10 seconds asking for a link i already sent him in the message he was just answering to... The cherry on the cake was a project lead who told me once that i have to write scrappier code as it is too clean & structured, i told him that will take extra time as i am going to confuse myself - in the end we agreed that he is going to search for a new developer. Like that it goes on, and on, and on, and on just like the universe and i just told you the peak of the iceberg... Working in development for 10+ years now i did learn the following rules very fast : 1) Work for YOURSELF, put your name on it and dont just hand out all the good ideas for free. 2) Always keep your CV & Portfolio up to date, you dont know when you want to leave. 3) Avoid "families" or company fanatics, value YOUR time because they wont. 4) Dont make 110% the default and say it loudly if you expect recognition for good work. 5) Set sail when you are stuck, NEVER wait for it to get better but make it better YOURSELF 6) Never wait for a raise, if not for a very good reason switch companies
@@Zalazaar 100% this. Any time someone asks me how they can get into game development i tell them that they will basically be reduced to an AWS machine turk only earning peanuts. Only masochists decide to venture into game dev professionally.
About a year after Black Flag’s release, I happened to meet a developer working at Ubisoft Singapore. He talked at length about how they were the studio that worked on the naval combat, and how he specifically worked on the legendary ship battles in BF. It’s quite disheartening to think that these people have been put to work on a game that seemed like a easy slam dunk at the time but then spun its wheels with no direction for almost a decade.
One of the best things about Black Flag which most forget is the companion app you could get. A live 2nd screen map (This was SOO underrated for combat, just being able to see who and what is around you 360 at all times) you can check treasure maps without having to pause the game, play kenways fleet when you wasnt in game and in bed/work/school. Just so much innovation from a great game... I go back usually and replay this game once a year, and a small part of me died when they killed the servers for the game which included the companion app...
to be honest i would like this game to focus around hand to hand combat as well not only naval combat and as you said in the video to have more freedom around exploring on land and not only to Limitedly be able to use your pirate in outposts as they showed us
Thank you for being an AC advocate for a Black Flag Sequel! Depending on how Infinity is built(multiple stories, potentially taking us back to different timelines) I could see us getting a small pirate world with Edward!
Great video! As someone who was really excited about Skull and Bones when it was first announced, it's really disheartening to see how Ubisoft has handled the development of the game. It's a shame that such a promising concept has been stuck in development hell for so long, and it's frustrating to see Ubisoft continue to prioritize their more profitable franchises over finishing this game. Hopefully, they'll take some of the criticism to heart and actually release a finished product someday.
I really hope they get the problems worked out and the game turns out to be even better than Age of Sail. Because I've been DYING to play a game where I feel like I'm in the middle of a Master and Commander novel. I hope we'll be able to actually BOARD the enemy ship and experience some first person hand to hand combat.
The time for this game has long since sailed (pun intended) Ubisoft should have just done a Black Flag sequel with Edward in South East Asia maybe, Singapore, Indonesia etc
It’s staggering how badly they fucked this up. It’s rare that a studio is given a more concrete, definitive “this is exactly what we want” blueprint, and yet they still decided “nah we’re gonna do…something else….we’re not sure what, but something, you’ll see”. It all could have been so easy.
This is def a title I am going to wait and see until after release. Skull and Bones' difficult development points to a bigger problem within UbiSoft which seems like a severe lack of leadership. UbiSoft is huge with over 16 000 of its employees directly involved in game development and look at what they have released in the last couple of years.. its mind-boggling. How is that company still around?
What I personally disliked is when Ubisoft announced Skull & Bones would be removing player control, and you would only be able to control a ship. I'd honestly love this game to turn into some sort of singleplayer rts, or some type of capture territory and upgrade your settlements and fleets type of game.
The idea for the 2018 release was solid. It was a smaller title like For Honor that focused on serving a specific niche audience. It was a match based game for people who liked the naval combat in Assassin's Creed. That was perfectly reasonable in terms of its scope.
Hi there, game dev and pirate enthusiast here to answer two questions in this video. One of the reason why this game was built from the ground up multiple times is most likely due to the fact that they had to choose between switching to a different engine, or using the same engine as ac4 to make a game that has next or current gen graphics. Either way, they had to make the game look better when it was decided to become it's own game instead of an ac4 dlc or something. Another is that there seems to be friction from all sides with the Singaporean government, to Ubisoft executives, to changing artistic direction. It could be any number of things, but I recon that those are the two major reasons for it being delayed. As for why they don't make an ac4 sequel, that is a very good question, and the answer is simple. They covered most of the interesting events known to have happened in the golden age of piracy. Keep in mind, that era was a flash in the pan that lasted only a couple decades. There weren't a lot of big notable events outside of Blackbeard's blockade of Charleston for medicine, the rise and fall of Tortuga, and the executions and deaths of the notable pirates. That's not to say they covered everything, but what they missed or left out isn't enough to justify another game. That being said, I'm no historian, I was just a big pirate nerd as a kid who read lots of history books on that time, so maybe I'm wrong and there was a metric ton of history that Ubisoft didn't include. Even then, I don't think they'd do a sequel for ac4 specifically.
Just makes me want a game where theres two teams of thirty or so on two different ships with people actually having set positions and stuff and having everyone coordinate would be cool, I know thatd be very unlikely but I’d love that.
I feel like they could’ve inner twined three different stories you can choose to be a pirate an assassin or Templar, each having different goals. Assassins and Templars could act like crewmates, while having other objectives
I think whats wild is, in a world where Skull and Bones and SoT release at the same time, SoT doesnt survive. It was a very bare-bones game back then and I think the AC Black Flag feel could have but S&B over SoT.
They could have easily had success with SnB considering many PVE focused players have completely dropped SoT because of its PVP elements, which there is no way to opt out of or do anything about. Rare made a beautiful world to explore but they don't want you to explore it without the threat of getting your one chest stolen instantly
I don't understand why Studios don't keep what worked and build from there. It seems so simple to all of us and we DON'T make games. How can they not see it? Baffling.
The reason I wanted to play this game was because it was based off the AC BF Naval combat. I just hope that when this game finally does release, there'll be tons of sea shanties to collect and teach the crew just like in Black Flag 😂
I been following an researching this game had it preordered in March on playstation store it said release 2023-2024. Now its been saying release 2023 on playstation store. Also was said that ubisoft would not be at E3 this year that day before E3 they were going to do a ubisoft forward showcasing games giving game update infos an on one of those was a update info on Skull an bones. Now didnt realize that on March 30 E3 for 2023 cancelled. That taken account will Ubisoft still release there ubi forward day before or during time E3 was to take place? If they are still going with the plan info should that is should get info on skull an bones maybe a release date. If everything does go accordingly we should receive info around June 12-the 17th as E3was supposed to be June 13-16
I don't know how a sequel to Black Flag would go; given how most of the famous pirates of the Golden Age of Piracy are dead. I was intrigued with the earlier 2017-2018 trailers; where the Golden Age is over, yet pirates have found a safe haven in Madagascar to rebuild their republic after the fall of Nassau. Select which ship and captain to go after said prey, and develop new alliances while slowly distrusting your own friends until a new threat forces you to mend the wounds and band together once more. Why did Ubisoft change this?
I believe the original direction for this game should have been a MMO CO-OP black flag, that allows players to fight and explore on foot, expands on the living world with merchant, civilian, pirate, and military roles for AI and players to engage in. Additionally, a further developed persistent world could be introduced, with systems such as notoriety and guilds, along with the presence of player controlled naval forts, trading guild headquarters, and pirate settlements, that could be attacked by other factions. However, unless a major direction switch or revision occurs, the game just seems to be an overly Arcade "game mode" based multiplayer experience with lackluster ship combat. furthermore, in its present state as addressed in the video, the game doesn't have any form of land-based or boarding combat, which was one of the most enjoyable parts of black flag.
When they first announced Skull and Bones it was a purely PVP affair. I wasn't terribly interested in that. When they reannounced the game last year I actually became excited about it. It was shaping up to be a game in the vein of Sid Meier's Pirates and I would have been happy with that. A pirate sand box where you chart your own purate career. But a lot of people complained you couldn't personally control your pirate during combat. While that wasn't an issue for me I can understand why so many people had a problem with it. When the game is inspired by Black Flag it's pretty much expected of the game. I just don't see why that aspect was so hard to figure out since they've already done it.
i love these videos i watch every time you upload and every time you say something about a game or rate it i can't help but agree on what you say because you make these videos so well
I think trying to make it an mmo is the big misstep. If they just made it into a multiplayer (hosted by one of the players) pirate game in the vein of black flag (you are a pirate and you have a ship) that would have sold like crazy.
I had already forgotten about Skull & Bones again. Back when it was supposed to come out late last year there was some people saying how many people would leave Sea of Thieves to go play this instead. I really don't think that would have happened, I don't really see them as direct competitors anyways, apart from the fact that the games are about pirates they still offer very different experiences.
To be honest, I just don't think Skull and Bones can work with Ubisoft's work ethic. It's going to be attached so easily to Black Flags and you can already see the similarities between those two games. Ubisoft would have to revamp pirate gameplay as a whole to make Skull and Bones work and feel fresh. I never got any fresh vibes from any gameplay shown to us, and it feels like they're trying to do many things at once. If you ask me, a pirate RPG like red dead redemption would easily be the best route for this but they also want to push multiplayer too. They could strive to be a bit more real when it came to what you can do with the pirate ship -- I'm particularly pointing out the whole attack a fort from your ship... yeah no that would barely be a viable option unless your pirate gang was absolutely ready rather than just upgrade a ship to the point it can take a beating. I just feel like this game is a Black Flags simulator
I can guarantee this game would have been out if they just stuck to a idea for a year or two,they just need to simplify this game to pirate rpg or mmo and be done with it
This is the reason why I like pirate games! Been playing that since I was 15.. Black Flag def seemed inspired by it as well as Prince of Persia obviously
@@SteamGrace I had trouble running it so a few years later I picked up the PSP version which has stood the test of time being I sill use it.. Still picked up the Steam version of ‘04 a few months ago just to be on the safe side
All they had to do was take the assassins storyline out and allow you to own different and bigger ships. Maybe add in being able to join countries navies and it'd be a solid game.
I'm just saying my opinion, they should have made it like AssAssincreed Black flag and with the Combat system and if you had raided a castle and there was another player who could join to try to Steal the loot from the Orther player and their crew was there, it would be so much better, but I just think that it would quickly become boring to just sail around and shoot. and that you could bored other players' ships and with the crew with a good combat system and balance if you know what i mean :-)
I liked the idea of pvp sea combat, but that would have dried up real quick. So Ubisoft decided it needed to be a story driven game with some pvp elements in it, but they keep tweaking it and adding stuff that just keeps dragging it out. They should have released the skeleton of what they had when Sea of Thieves dropped and tried to figure out what players wanted it to be from there.
I was thinking of not only pvp sea combat but also an rts style economic system where you go out and explore land capture outposts and build bigger ships in a team of 2 - 12 players.
im glad to see a game that is not ready get delayed. so tired of publishers putting out games that are half ready at best. hoping for the best from this title once its actually released
With the recent change in management philosophy at Ubisoft, it seems that they're trying to release it polished and leave this in the past considering how much of a money sink it has been. I feel like the next batch of Ubisoft games post Avatar is when we're gonna see the actual result of this change in philosophy.
Well there's no land combat they expect it to be like Assassin Creed Black Flag probably why it's getting a sequel Assassin's Creed Black Flag don't get me wrong everything needs a chance to shine even skull and bones
Im still disappointed they continue edward‘s story in a webcomic and not in a game. I hope Ubisoft goes back and remake AC 1 and give characters like connor, edward arno and shay sequels. It will probably never happen but who knows.
I'll tell you I've been waiting for this game because I love black flag but it's been gone for so long that I forgot about it XD your video reminded me of it
There'll probably be another Ghost Recon game by the time Skull and Bones gets released.And it really would made a nice change if Ubisoft could make an original game once in a blue moon that doesn't copy other games
i got a chance to play the alpha of this game and all i can say is i will wait as long as it takes. When a release date is announced i will 100% preorder it.
Im still hoping for the best. Not blindly loyal to the project, but I still hope I can have some Naval Combat fun like I did back in the day with Rogue & Black Flag. BUT I feel like it might be too late, and by now they have probably tried to put a "modern twist" or some kind of "twist" on the gameplay to feel different and new, even though we dont need that.
This might sound wierd; but if their obligated to release the game due to their agreement with the singaporian gov, they might aswell delay it even further to add more to the game.
I would love to know what's happening behind the studio walls. Date by date. People by people. It would be easy to say they are just incompetent to make it, but probably not that simple.
Definitely should have done a Black Flag sequel instead. I was curious to try Skull and Bones when it was first announced but the best prt of the ship combat in Black Flag was boarding the ship and the hand-to-hand combat. I don’t know why that is so hard for Ubisoft to understand.
I was freshly graduated from high school when black flag released. I'm literally about to have a daughter before this game drops. I was so excited for this like 5 years ago..
Ubisoft has the biggest problem, out of the big publishers, of adding weak fantasy/unrealistic bits in games that only cause the art-style and world to fall apart and my enjoyment to leave, but normally they do that with updates down the line for more money after 1/2 years. both rainbow six and for honor are great example. Just speaking of for honor because I used to play it a lot it started as a dark gritty murder game based on semi-history and what-ifs with some joke bits that fit the world and now magic is a thing and you have so many effects that clash with the animations most of the time you can not even see the executions clearly. I could keep going on it but you get my point, they had a clear vision and hollowed it out to sell more cosmetics. With skull and bones they did not even seem to wait with how badly they want this to get SOME money, the ships are suppose to be pirate ships but you can slap greek-fire launches (flamethrowers) big plates of metal and cargo on the outside and just a bunch of *spooky* cosmetics along with all other kinds of silliness that just make me go "do they even have a style guide anymore?" so the moment I saw that my last bit of interest in the game left.
I can"t wait for this game to come out so I can further broaden my "Massively Delayed Games" rating chart alongside Kingdom Hearts 3, Shenmue 3 and Duke Nukem Forever
I was really looking forward to this game and very hopeful that every release date would stick. personally I cant see this game ever being released now and if it does I think it will have so many issues that it will just crash an burn. If it ever does come out I will still purchase in the hopes that this will fill the pirate void ive been looking for. I've played SOT which initially was a really cool unique game but very quickly all the tasks and quests became very repetitive and the combat was very limited due to the servers only holding 8 teams at once, if there ever was that many on one server, for me it would be cool if they could implement the multi player aspect that new world had with a fully open world server, be able to create crews of 50+ people to be able to voyage and fight with massive boats or at the smaller end of the scale have small ships for the solo/duo players.
Make it like assassins creed black flag with even more of a heavy ship element ( still explore islands and towns, get treasure, money and supplies, have never ending ship battles, fort takedowns, etc) have a main character too lol
The only way i see a pirate game to do well is in a minecraft like sandbox, the only game i think off with Pirate elements that catched my attention for a longer time is Black Desert, and that only because i liked the "buy your home and decorade it on the open see while fishing and tradeing goods." Aspect of it.
Sounds like a "too many cooks" sort of situation. The game is in development purgatory due to the ideas and actions of folks, on top of being legally bound in many ways. It'll be interesting what gets spit out on the other side of all this.
I still remember when they first showed this off at e3, I got hyped at first but quickly felt that it was gonna be a crappy capitalization on the black flag experience and decided to walk away.
Well I still have hope for this game... I heard this game has been delayed so much cause of people with their negative responses... but I have heard the developers are now doing a upgraded version of the game ( more land exploration ) and hand to hand combat now
The ability to seamlessly go from sailing, to ship combat, to boarding/melee combat, and back to sailing is at THE CORE of Black Flag's appeal. Removing boarding will kill the game before it's even released. Insane that they think that people want a pirate game where you can't get into sword fights. It's like releasing a GTA game where you can't leave your car, absolute lunacy.
By the time this game finally comes out, all that’s left of me wil be a skull and some bones 😭😭
W
💀☠💀
I knew someone would comment this
Fr
by the time skull and bones releases gta 69 will be out
"are you controlling the ship or the pirate?" I can envision at least 500 meetings with the producers to figure out that exact question over the 6 years of development
They've no doubt answered that question at least 3 times by now - if not 30. Albeit it's answered differently every time.
You can only very rarely get off the boat and go ashore, so for the most part the ship.
I feel so bad for the developers.Imagine having to work on a project for so many years while the directors don't know what they actually want.
That's what happens when you have a production line dev team. None of them know wtf they're making.
The direction they headed into open world pvpve with a grind system is very good. Its just they could have added a little more to the land gameplay so the main audience will be pleased
Thats why you dont work for a big game company
26yo Developer here!
I have been actively programming since 14yo and i got interested at 9. I am always at my current task with full enthusiasm, i just love prgramming, DevOps and computers - i constantly do it, think about it or read and learn new things for it.
I am very happy i am not in game dev, even when i was able to collect some experience in Cry, UDK3, Quake, Ogre & Unity3d. Actually i started this because i got interested in World of Warcraft emulation using MaNGOS/TrinityCore (C++) as i was running my own server, writing fixes for the TrinityCore FOSS repo and developing web-systems for TrinityCore - so that is a pretty strong gaming background i would guess. If you ever played death knight on a private server you will have enjoyed my work! :)
When my (first) employer started to block expertise and do LOTS of unnecessary revisions, changes and dumbo decisions i just felt my fire going off. I am still pursuing my personal projects as i always did but i just changed the way i approach my carreer. I experienced a LOT of times that i propose a big improvement or workflow that is met if desinterest and that deciders push for technically really bad decisions. While other companies embrace technical limitations of their architecture i experienced it a LOT that companies want the developers to do magic tricks and fix their ol pile of spaghetti code.
I once had a CTO tell me that package managers like NPM or Composer install random versions, he never understood what a lock file were for no matter how ofthen i tried.
Same CTO also told me that ORM is very bad, slow and uncontrollable, he did take every opportunity to bash frameworks like Laravel & their contributors because he is obviously above them. He also wrote his own backend in PHP, it was VERY slow, full of copy paste third party code, full of dubious Queries and injections, everything was full of require_once as well as global variables and shiate literally.
Different company CTO wants to explain to me why nullable return type in PHP and programming is bad in general and why we should only use exceptiions / throw from now on - no, i am not kidding with this one.
Same company i am employed as junior (what they made explicitly clear because i am such a noob), i did have to explain to my CTO and team the difference between EXPOSE and PORT after explaining the difference between an Image and a Container in Docker for like the 100th time.
Same company, i constantly cross-reference EVERYTHING so in every Ticket, Task or Pull Request there is every Link and a clear history of what exists and what happened. For example in a Pull Request i will always copy over any description from and link the Ticket / Task as well as any related Pull Request, Commit or line of code. I had this co worker who would only half-read chat messages and ignore Ticket / Task & PR descriptions. LIke the information was there literally, as you can see from the history/versioning, and he starts asking if i can shoot him the link.
Same dude asked me something about a framework and issue he has. I answered with a detailed explaination, a code example as well as the link to any documentations that might be interesting to his inquiry. I did take like 20 minutes to write up a quality message for him and he just replied in 10 seconds asking for a link i already sent him in the message he was just answering to...
The cherry on the cake was a project lead who told me once that i have to write scrappier code as it is too clean & structured, i told him that will take extra time as i am going to confuse myself - in the end we agreed that he is going to search for a new developer.
Like that it goes on, and on, and on, and on just like the universe and i just told you the peak of the iceberg...
Working in development for 10+ years now i did learn the following rules very fast :
1) Work for YOURSELF, put your name on it and dont just hand out all the good ideas for free.
2) Always keep your CV & Portfolio up to date, you dont know when you want to leave.
3) Avoid "families" or company fanatics, value YOUR time because they wont.
4) Dont make 110% the default and say it loudly if you expect recognition for good work.
5) Set sail when you are stuck, NEVER wait for it to get better but make it better YOURSELF
6) Never wait for a raise, if not for a very good reason switch companies
@@Zalazaar 100% this. Any time someone asks me how they can get into game development i tell them that they will basically be reduced to an AWS machine turk only earning peanuts. Only masochists decide to venture into game dev professionally.
About a year after Black Flag’s release, I happened to meet a developer working at Ubisoft Singapore. He talked at length about how they were the studio that worked on the naval combat, and how he specifically worked on the legendary ship battles in BF.
It’s quite disheartening to think that these people have been put to work on a game that seemed like a easy slam dunk at the time but then spun its wheels with no direction for almost a decade.
One of the best things about Black Flag which most forget is the companion app you could get. A live 2nd screen map (This was SOO underrated for combat, just being able to see who and what is around you 360 at all times) you can check treasure maps without having to pause the game, play kenways fleet when you wasnt in game and in bed/work/school. Just so much innovation from a great game...
I go back usually and replay this game once a year, and a small part of me died when they killed the servers for the game which included the companion app...
Like a mini map?
Yeah I managed to get to top 100 richest pirates in my country by playing on phone at school xd
That ending of Black flag still makes me want to cry up to now🥲🥲🥲🥲
Black flag needs a remaster right now
@@ISwarmII fk a remaster, give us a remake. new story, same setting and era.
@@code01372 that’s not a remake that’s a sequel 😭
@@geordankaiser3356 yeah i was high when i wrote that ngl mb
to be honest i would like this game to focus around hand to hand combat as well not only naval combat and as you said in the video to have more freedom around exploring on land and not only to Limitedly be able to use your pirate in outposts as they showed us
Exactly!! I want to feel like I'm living out Master and Commander.
Half the pirate fantasy is fighting with cutlasses. For some reason the devs thought naval combat would be enough for us and easier for them
Try Sea of Thieves instead. S&B will not have hand-to-hand combat, or boarding ships
Which is what I and so many others have said for 7 years. Plenty of time for them to have actually made those changes, but it seems like they haven't.
You just described Sea of Thieves and I dont know if you meant to.
Thank you for being an AC advocate for a Black Flag Sequel! Depending on how Infinity is built(multiple stories, potentially taking us back to different timelines) I could see us getting a small pirate world with Edward!
Imagine if infinity was just alternative endings to ac games
It will be another open world checklist just like the previous 3 assassins creed games.
@@zachrohler1047 oh...still...Im hopin for alternate endings
The words "six years ago" and "2017" make me feel weird
Ong doesn’t feel like 6 years ago I do miss those days
That's when I graduated college...it's wild.
I graduated HS in 2017
I did your mom in 2017!
Bruh whenever i hear "10 years ago" I still think of the 90's...
Skull and Bones is Ubisoft's GTA 6
But unlike Rockstar, Ubisoft always bragging the shit out of their game while still on unsteady stage.
@@harya7517 Also unlike Rockstar, Ubisoft makes only generic, boring, empty shit
@@duncanidaho5834 Fully agree
Elder scrolls 6
Except GTA 6 will actually be good
Great video! As someone who was really excited about Skull and Bones when it was first announced, it's really disheartening to see how Ubisoft has handled the development of the game. It's a shame that such a promising concept has been stuck in development hell for so long, and it's frustrating to see Ubisoft continue to prioritize their more profitable franchises over finishing this game. Hopefully, they'll take some of the criticism to heart and actually release a finished product someday.
We're going to figure out nuclear fusion before this game gets released
I really hope they get the problems worked out and the game turns out to be even better than Age of Sail. Because I've been DYING to play a game where I feel like I'm in the middle of a Master and Commander novel. I hope we'll be able to actually BOARD the enemy ship and experience some first person hand to hand combat.
It's Ubisoft. Why do you expect so much from them?
most likely will be a micro transaction filled ship simulator
play sea of theives lol lot better than this trash game
@@jammieblack sea of thieves is bad.... all you do is find an island then figure out a puzzle to get loot 🥱🥱🥱
@@kanekennedy8819 the game has been updated so there is a fuckton more than just going to an island and doing basic shit
The time for this game has long since sailed (pun intended)
Ubisoft should have just done a Black Flag sequel with Edward in South East Asia maybe, Singapore, Indonesia etc
It’s staggering how badly they fucked this up. It’s rare that a studio is given a more concrete, definitive “this is exactly what we want” blueprint, and yet they still decided “nah we’re gonna do…something else….we’re not sure what, but something, you’ll see”.
It all could have been so easy.
If they would listen what gamers want to see in a pirate game, they wouldnt be in a nightmare. Stupid, arrogant managers in suits.
This is def a title I am going to wait and see until after release. Skull and Bones' difficult development points to a bigger problem within UbiSoft which seems like a severe lack of leadership. UbiSoft is huge with over 16 000 of its employees directly involved in game development and look at what they have released in the last couple of years.. its mind-boggling. How is that company still around?
Imagine making a pirate game where you play as the boat lol
Can’t wait for the 100 dollar platinum version with some bling steering wheels. Gotta be worth the wait. 😂
I like the fact that you played Sea of Thieves music under the video about a competitor game. A nice touch 😆
What I personally disliked is when Ubisoft announced Skull & Bones would be removing player control, and you would only be able to control a ship. I'd honestly love this game to turn into some sort of singleplayer rts, or some type of capture territory and upgrade your settlements and fleets type of game.
Love how you have The Sea Of Thieves soundtrack playing during this
Rag'n'bone man has entered the chat.
He is not human anymore.
This game needed to be the Assassins Creed version of Sea of Thieves.
What it needs to be and what it's shaping out to be are 2 very, VERY different things it appears.
I remember young me thinking this would essentially be black flag but co-op multiplayer, I was so excited
Happy labor day Assassins
Tried the closed beta awhile back, was hard to play were waterstamps all over the screen could hardly see what I was doing.
The idea for the 2018 release was solid. It was a smaller title like For Honor that focused on serving a specific niche audience. It was a match based game for people who liked the naval combat in Assassin's Creed. That was perfectly reasonable in terms of its scope.
That is actually all skull and bones needed to be. I mean they could have just made it into a multiplayer DLC for Black Flag.
Some sort of record... *checks Squadron 42/Star Citizen release date*
Hi there, game dev and pirate enthusiast here to answer two questions in this video. One of the reason why this game was built from the ground up multiple times is most likely due to the fact that they had to choose between switching to a different engine, or using the same engine as ac4 to make a game that has next or current gen graphics. Either way, they had to make the game look better when it was decided to become it's own game instead of an ac4 dlc or something. Another is that there seems to be friction from all sides with the Singaporean government, to Ubisoft executives, to changing artistic direction. It could be any number of things, but I recon that those are the two major reasons for it being delayed.
As for why they don't make an ac4 sequel, that is a very good question, and the answer is simple. They covered most of the interesting events known to have happened in the golden age of piracy. Keep in mind, that era was a flash in the pan that lasted only a couple decades. There weren't a lot of big notable events outside of Blackbeard's blockade of Charleston for medicine, the rise and fall of Tortuga, and the executions and deaths of the notable pirates. That's not to say they covered everything, but what they missed or left out isn't enough to justify another game. That being said, I'm no historian, I was just a big pirate nerd as a kid who read lots of history books on that time, so maybe I'm wrong and there was a metric ton of history that Ubisoft didn't include. Even then, I don't think they'd do a sequel for ac4 specifically.
Just makes me want a game where theres two teams of thirty or so on two different ships with people actually having set positions and stuff and having everyone coordinate would be cool, I know thatd be very unlikely but I’d love that.
Look into Atlas. Its pretty much what this game is trying to be.
Ok which releases first Hytale or Skull And Bones
I feel like they could’ve inner twined three different stories you can choose to be a pirate an assassin or Templar, each having different goals. Assassins and Templars could act like crewmates, while having other objectives
Skull and Bones just feels like an unintentional Black Flag advertisement
Just make a prequel for Edward bc he was a privateer before he became a pirate ❤
What I wouldn’t give for a black flag 2 maybe one day I loved the sea shanties.
I think whats wild is, in a world where Skull and Bones and SoT release at the same time, SoT doesnt survive. It was a very bare-bones game back then and I think the AC Black Flag feel could have but S&B over SoT.
They could have easily had success with SnB considering many PVE focused players have completely dropped SoT because of its PVP elements, which there is no way to opt out of or do anything about.
Rare made a beautiful world to explore but they don't want you to explore it without the threat of getting your one chest stolen instantly
SoT got boring fast... Imagine no pvp. Pve players are just a bunch of p*ssies
It's not your chest, it never was and it never will be. First mistake when playing Sea of Thieves.
I don't understand why Studios don't keep what worked and build from there. It seems so simple to all of us and we DON'T make games. How can they not see it? Baffling.
The reason I wanted to play this game was because it was based off the AC BF Naval combat. I just hope that when this game finally does release, there'll be tons of sea shanties to collect and teach the crew just like in Black Flag 😂
LOL at the sea of theives music that you play when your ship sinks. *round of applause*
When Sea of Thieves came out, I literally thought it was Skull and Bones until I actually looked at it.
I been following an researching this game had it preordered in March on playstation store it said release 2023-2024. Now its been saying release 2023 on playstation store. Also was said that ubisoft would not be at E3 this year that day before E3 they were going to do a ubisoft forward showcasing games giving game update infos an on one of those was a update info on Skull an bones. Now didnt realize that on March 30 E3 for 2023 cancelled. That taken account will Ubisoft still release there ubi forward day before or during time E3 was to take place? If they are still going with the plan info should that is should get info on skull an bones maybe a release date. If everything does go accordingly we should receive info around June 12-the 17th as E3was supposed to be June 13-16
I don't know how a sequel to Black Flag would go; given how most of the famous pirates of the Golden Age of Piracy are dead.
I was intrigued with the earlier 2017-2018 trailers; where the Golden Age is over, yet pirates have found a safe haven in Madagascar to rebuild their republic after the fall of Nassau. Select which ship and captain to go after said prey, and develop new alliances while slowly distrusting your own friends until a new threat forces you to mend the wounds and band together once more. Why did Ubisoft change this?
I believe the original direction for this game should have been a MMO CO-OP black flag, that allows players to fight and explore on foot, expands on the living world with merchant, civilian, pirate, and military roles for AI and players to engage in. Additionally, a further developed persistent world could be introduced, with systems such as notoriety and guilds, along with the presence of player controlled naval forts, trading guild headquarters, and pirate settlements, that could be attacked by other factions.
However, unless a major direction switch or revision occurs, the game just seems to be an overly Arcade "game mode" based multiplayer experience with lackluster ship combat. furthermore, in its present state as addressed in the video, the game doesn't have any form of land-based or boarding combat, which was one of the most enjoyable parts of black flag.
When they first announced Skull and Bones it was a purely PVP affair. I wasn't terribly interested in that. When they reannounced the game last year I actually became excited about it. It was shaping up to be a game in the vein of Sid Meier's Pirates and I would have been happy with that. A pirate sand box where you chart your own purate career. But a lot of people complained you couldn't personally control your pirate during combat. While that wasn't an issue for me I can understand why so many people had a problem with it. When the game is inspired by Black Flag it's pretty much expected of the game. I just don't see why that aspect was so hard to figure out since they've already done it.
Dude i was a sophomore in high school when the game was revealed. Now im about to graduate college and the game still isn’t out yet 💀💀
**Shallow Brown plays silently in the distance…**
i love these videos i watch every time you upload and every time you say something about a game or rate it i can't help but agree on what you say because you make these videos so well
I think trying to make it an mmo is the big misstep. If they just made it into a multiplayer (hosted by one of the players) pirate game in the vein of black flag (you are a pirate and you have a ship) that would have sold like crazy.
I was going to get the premium edition it sounded so fun. Then the game keeps getting delayed I don’t know if I’ll even get it now.
I have question for you master assassin do you know what assassin’s creed music is copyright free
I had already forgotten about Skull & Bones again. Back when it was supposed to come out late last year there was some people saying how many people would leave Sea of Thieves to go play this instead. I really don't think that would have happened, I don't really see them as direct competitors anyways, apart from the fact that the games are about pirates they still offer very different experiences.
To be honest, I just don't think Skull and Bones can work with Ubisoft's work ethic. It's going to be attached so easily to Black Flags and you can already see the similarities between those two games. Ubisoft would have to revamp pirate gameplay as a whole to make Skull and Bones work and feel fresh. I never got any fresh vibes from any gameplay shown to us, and it feels like they're trying to do many things at once. If you ask me, a pirate RPG like red dead redemption would easily be the best route for this but they also want to push multiplayer too. They could strive to be a bit more real when it came to what you can do with the pirate ship -- I'm particularly pointing out the whole attack a fort from your ship... yeah no that would barely be a viable option unless your pirate gang was absolutely ready rather than just upgrade a ship to the point it can take a beating. I just feel like this game is a Black Flags simulator
I can guarantee this game would have been out if they just stuck to a idea for a year or two,they just need to simplify this game to pirate rpg or mmo and be done with it
Best pirate game is Sid Meier's Pirates!
This is the reason why I like pirate games! Been playing that since I was 15.. Black Flag def seemed inspired by it as well as Prince of Persia obviously
The 2004 version, of course. 😉
@@SteamGrace I had trouble running it so a few years later I picked up the PSP version which has stood the test of time being I sill use it.. Still picked up the Steam version of ‘04 a few months ago just to be on the safe side
All they had to do was take the assassins storyline out and allow you to own different and bigger ships. Maybe add in being able to join countries navies and it'd be a solid game.
I'm just saying my opinion, they should have made it like AssAssincreed Black flag and with the Combat system and if you had raided a castle and there was another player who could join to try to Steal the loot from the Orther player and their crew was there, it would be so much better, but I just think that it would quickly become boring to just sail around and shoot. and that you could bored other players' ships and with the crew with a good combat system and balance if you know what i mean :-)
I love how you put the sea of thieves theme in
I liked the idea of pvp sea combat, but that would have dried up real quick. So Ubisoft decided it needed to be a story driven game with some pvp elements in it, but they keep tweaking it and adding stuff that just keeps dragging it out. They should have released the skeleton of what they had when Sea of Thieves dropped and tried to figure out what players wanted it to be from there.
I was thinking of not only pvp sea combat but also an rts style economic system where you go out and explore land capture outposts and build bigger ships in a team of 2 - 12 players.
@MasterAssassin, Edward is having his sequel through a WEBTOON called Assassins’ Creed Forgotten Temple
I love that you put Sea of thieves music under the video.
im glad to see a game that is not ready get delayed. so tired of publishers putting out games that are half ready at best. hoping for the best from this title once its actually released
With the recent change in management philosophy at Ubisoft, it seems that they're trying to release it polished and leave this in the past considering how much of a money sink it has been. I feel like the next batch of Ubisoft games post Avatar is when we're gonna see the actual result of this change in philosophy.
Well there's no land combat they expect it to be like Assassin Creed Black Flag probably why it's getting a sequel Assassin's Creed Black Flag don't get me wrong everything needs a chance to shine even skull and bones
You can’t talk about the best pirate games without even mentioning sea dogs
Im still disappointed they continue edward‘s story in a webcomic and not in a game. I hope Ubisoft goes back and remake AC 1 and give characters like connor, edward arno and shay sequels. It will probably never happen but who knows.
Know wonder the game is taking so long, all the staff are sitting around playing table tennis and taking group selfies
How much progress did people make back in the day in a timespan of 10 years buildings stuff like the pyramids?
I really like the test, it was really chill to play, I wish the best luck to get it out in a good shape
I don't mind the delays as long as it's good when it's done
Bro really had sea of thieves theme in the background
I'll tell you I've been waiting for this game because I love black flag but it's been gone for so long that I forgot about it XD your video reminded me of it
Don't worry, we are getting a sequel with Edward Kenway.
It's a Webtoon (:
I just find it really funny that while we are talking trash about skull and bones, the man has sea of thieves music playing in the backround.
There'll probably be another Ghost Recon game by the time Skull and Bones gets released.And it really would made a nice change if Ubisoft could make an original game once in a blue moon that doesn't copy other games
i got a chance to play the alpha of this game and all i can say is i will wait as long as it takes. When a release date is announced i will 100% preorder it.
Someday I’m gonna tell me grand children I was there when the game was announced and their gonna respond with “yea me too grandpa”
Im still hoping for the best. Not blindly loyal to the project, but I still hope I can have some Naval Combat fun like I did back in the day with Rogue & Black Flag. BUT I feel like it might be too late, and by now they have probably tried to put a "modern twist" or some kind of "twist" on the gameplay to feel different and new, even though we dont need that.
This might sound wierd; but if their obligated to release the game due to their agreement with the singaporian gov, they might aswell delay it even further to add more to the game.
I would love to know what's happening behind the studio walls. Date by date. People by people. It would be easy to say they are just incompetent to make it, but probably not that simple.
Definitely should have done a Black Flag sequel instead. I was curious to try Skull and Bones when it was first announced but the best prt of the ship combat in Black Flag was boarding the ship and the hand-to-hand combat. I don’t know why that is so hard for Ubisoft to understand.
I was freshly graduated from high school when black flag released. I'm literally about to have a daughter before this game drops. I was so excited for this like 5 years ago..
This damn game has been in development through a generation of counsels
Ubisoft has the biggest problem, out of the big publishers, of adding weak fantasy/unrealistic bits in games that only cause the art-style and world to fall apart and my enjoyment to leave, but normally they do that with updates down the line for more money after 1/2 years. both rainbow six and for honor are great example. Just speaking of for honor because I used to play it a lot it started as a dark gritty murder game based on semi-history and what-ifs with some joke bits that fit the world and now magic is a thing and you have so many effects that clash with the animations most of the time you can not even see the executions clearly. I could keep going on it but you get my point, they had a clear vision and hollowed it out to sell more cosmetics.
With skull and bones they did not even seem to wait with how badly they want this to get SOME money, the ships are suppose to be pirate ships but you can slap greek-fire launches (flamethrowers) big plates of metal and cargo on the outside and just a bunch of *spooky* cosmetics along with all other kinds of silliness that just make me go "do they even have a style guide anymore?" so the moment I saw that my last bit of interest in the game left.
I can"t wait for this game to come out so I can further broaden my "Massively Delayed Games" rating chart alongside Kingdom Hearts 3, Shenmue 3 and Duke Nukem Forever
I was really looking forward to this game and very hopeful that every release date would stick. personally I cant see this game ever being released now and if it does I think it will have so many issues that it will just crash an burn. If it ever does come out I will still purchase in the hopes that this will fill the pirate void ive been looking for. I've played SOT which initially was a really cool unique game but very quickly all the tasks and quests became very repetitive and the combat was very limited due to the servers only holding 8 teams at once, if there ever was that many on one server, for me it would be cool if they could implement the multi player aspect that new world had with a fully open world server, be able to create crews of 50+ people to be able to voyage and fight with massive boats or at the smaller end of the scale have small ships for the solo/duo players.
Make it like assassins creed black flag with even more of a heavy ship element ( still explore islands and towns, get treasure, money and supplies, have never ending ship battles, fort takedowns, etc) have a main character too lol
Why cant use historical fact as base of inspiration of the game. You can last travel across ocean and can you hidden base of operations.
The only way i see a pirate game to do well is in a minecraft like sandbox, the only game i think off with Pirate elements that catched my attention for a longer time is Black Desert, and that only because i liked the "buy your home and decorade it on the open see while fishing and tradeing goods." Aspect of it.
Sounds like a "too many cooks" sort of situation. The game is in development purgatory due to the ideas and actions of folks, on top of being legally bound in many ways. It'll be interesting what gets spit out on the other side of all this.
Dead Island 2 : Are you challenge me ?
I still remember when they first showed this off at e3, I got hyped at first but quickly felt that it was gonna be a crappy capitalization on the black flag experience and decided to walk away.
Hard to believe duke nukem forever took a decade and a half to release
Well I still have hope for this game... I heard this game has been delayed so much cause of people with their negative responses... but I have heard the developers are now doing a upgraded version of the game ( more land exploration ) and hand to hand combat now
"I'm so excited to see the beta!!" : Me 6 yrs ago, getting the email invite to the beta.
Can you do Arno Dorian Vs Jacob Frye?
The ability to seamlessly go from sailing, to ship combat, to boarding/melee combat, and back to sailing is at THE CORE of Black Flag's appeal. Removing boarding will kill the game before it's even released. Insane that they think that people want a pirate game where you can't get into sword fights. It's like releasing a GTA game where you can't leave your car, absolute lunacy.
Why does it feel like games are either released way before they’re done or just delayed into oblivion with absolutely nothing in between lol
By the time this game comes out it won’t be called skull and bones anymore, the new name will be
“Fossil fuel”
I mean, this video having sea of thieves’ music playing in the background says it all really.