Skull and Bones Impressions: A few fun elements don't save the archaic whole

Let's not beat around the bush: many of us have been expecting Skull and Bones to be an unmitigated disaster. Very few games have undergone the same turbulent development as this title, in fact there is probably one only major project that has had a more troubled development and that's the almost mythical Beyond Good and Evil 2. Skull and Bones has been years and years in the making, and in that time had its development completely restarted too, so it's already facing a tidal wave of tempered expectations from fans. But is that fair? Is this a game that you should be wary and cautious about? The answer to that question seems to be both yes and no, surprisingly.

I say this because I've spent the past weekend doing pretty much everything I can possibly do in the open beta for Skull and Bones. I've weighed anchor, travelled around various parts of the Indian Ocean and coast of Africa, sunk vessels of different sizes and styles, and begun to make a name for myself as the most infamous pirate on the temperate waters. After hours of gameplay, it's clear to me that Skull and Bones isn't an absolute nightmare of a game. There is a body and framework that Ubisoft has laid out that is fundamentally fun, but the main issue with this game is that it's held back by a multitude of different other problems. As we said in our review of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, Skull and Bones is also quite clearly a game that has been developed with the wrong priorities and at the wrong time. It's a title that is looking to arrive as consumers tire of indigestible live service behemoths all while featuring core gameplay systems and elements that feel as though they've been ripped from the late 2000s.

The idea of Skull and Bones is almost MMORPG-esque. You're dropped into a mega world, and you're essentially just told to complete quests and activities to earn Infamy reputation (to unlock new activities and opportunities) and to gather resources and gear required to upgrade and enhance your ship so that it can take on more demanding tasks and foes. This is a game that is exclusively about progression and chasing a power fantasy, as there's really no core storyline to follow, very few meaningful and interesting quests and narrative threads that add character to the world, and most of the quests use the same core format, meaning there's a great deal of repetitiveness involved too. I admit that might sound terribly boring, and to many it will be, but there is something about the gameplay that makes you want to come back for more.

There will be some people who tell you that Skull and Bones' gameplay is a carbon-copy of Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, but it's not. This is a faster-paced, less strategic system that is almost shooter-like. You sail around the enormous (and I really do mean enormous) map blasting anything you want to pieces. Whether it's opposing ships, settlements to plunder, or wildlife to hunt, there's no taking your foot off the accelerator, it's constant action without remorse, and to accommodate that you can build a ship that suits your playstyle and features weaponry that reflects it further. If you enjoy chasing ships, you can equip long guns on the bow, but if you prefer getting into the heat of battle, you can trend to a collection of short-range cannons on the port and starboard sides to shred any close threats. The customisation is broad and deep, and the actual combat and movement mechanics are well-designed, albeit not at all very realistic in feeling (these big wooden vessels have the manoeuvrability of a RHIB boat).

The point is, Skull and Bones is a fun game to play in many metrics. The feeling of sinking ships and having factions chasing you across the seas for your infamous actions, it's all very thrilling and engaging. The problem is that the actual meat of what you're expected to do lacks any significance. The contracts are all about carrying goods to a distant port, sinking a specific type of ship, finding buried treasure by following a very easy to understand map. It's only when you get into world events or the more demanding contracts that the game begins to show its potential, but this is where another element starts to affect the experience.

Skull and Bones is fundamentally playable alone, but it's designed as a multiplayer game and that means that many of the best tasks require a team. Sure, Ubisoft has implemented quite solid multiplayer systems that encourage teamwork, but let's be honest, most people won't use them to do anything but align with friends, which means if you can't convince your pals to fork out the cash to buy what Ubisoft is pricing as a AAAA £70 experience (that is a stretch to say without question), you will likely avoid much of the best content. And this does stretch to progression too, as the best rewards come from the hardest tasks, and if you can't overcome them alone, you'll have to progress the hard way and this will take an absolute age.

Anyway, let's get to the real problems now. Beyond bugs and performance issues (which I've encountered a plethora, including hard crashes and dialogue getting stuck forcing me to quit to the main menu), Skull and Bones features a design that cannot be described as anything but archaic. You pretty much never leave your ship, but when you do go on land, all there is to be found are a ton of loading screens and vendors that barely do anything different. There is no meaning to ever leaving your ship, and quite frankly Ubisoft could have saved a ton of effort by making docks simply a selection of menus that you can access without ever leaving your ship. Frankly, that would even benefit the game, because there are too many weird and counterintuitive gameplay systems that force you to exit your ship for zero reason too, including only being able to fast travel when boots on the ground at a dock and also docks not becoming available for fast travel until you actually step off your ship.

There are so many parts of this game that make me bored and frustrated. The quest design is mostly miserable, and the narrative is nonexistent and yet for some reason still has dialogue choices that seemingly have zero impact on the game whatsoever. The docks are the most irrelevant parts of the game altogether, and there are no interesting characters that also aren't solely designed to serve vendor purposes. Skull and Bones reminds me of launch Sea of Thieves, where it's very clear that there is something fun and interesting about this game at its core but it's held back by such a broad array of issues and problems that it's hard to remain positive a lot of the time. For the creative folk who enjoy designing and manufacturing their own storylines, no doubt you'll be able to look past some of these problems (as you probably did with Sea of Thieves all those years ago), but for everyone else, I can't help but feel as though Skull and Bones will struggle to maintain player engagement a couple of weeks after its debut, when the ruthless progression has sapped any remaining motivation.

There's every chance that the endgame and the latter activities will significantly improve Skull and Bones, which is why I'll be back in a few days or a week to share more complete thoughts based on the full launch, but for the time being, I think Skull and Bones is going to fall into the same category as Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, which is that of another game that will serve as a metaphorical nail in the coffin that is the recent tidal wave of unwanted live service projects.