Ahoy, there mateys! Insert all the pirate puns here! The long-awaited Ubisoft open-world pirate adventure fans have clamouring for since 2013’s Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag is finally here. After lengthy delays, cancellations and then government grants forcing the game to see the light of day, we’re ready to sail the high seas. So after all the hype and delays, has it paid off? Well, sort of. It’s not a complete mess, there is a lot of fun to be found here in the naval combat and exploring the open waters.
Regrettably, it’s not all fun here. Skull and Bones ultimately lacks the depth of sea-faring gameplay and the rich story that Black Flag had that made it work so well. Once you get through the tutorial parts and learn your way around the world, it is fun in small doses. There is a whole year of additional content planned for the game so time will tell if this adds any incentive to come back. Right now though, the game is a little too bare-bones to justify its new-realese price.
Hoist Your Sails!
Set in the 17th-century Indian Ocean, the backdrop for this experience is certainly grand in scale. You have direct control of a ship that you can customise to your heart’s content through cosmetic upgrades, weapons and shields. You sail the ocean in search of treasure, either in solo or by recruiting friends or online randoms to join your fleet. Along the way, you will gather resources and take on heists and battles at sea to increase your infamy.
The maritime gameplay is truly where this game shines, with loading up the right weapons on your ship before embarking on each mission being vital to claim your loot. The combat feels smooth in both navigating around the open waters and in naval battle. Your starter ship is surprisingly strong, and when you start collecting items and returning to the docks, you can craft new items and unlock more ship options.
A Pirate’s Life for Me
As far as the story goes, there is not a whole lot of substance here. There isn’t much of anything. You’ll initially be given a range of missions from Admiral Rahma and pirate Captain John Spurlock. Amongst these mainline missions, you are quite often told to “fend for yourself”, in which the main chunk of the experience takes about 15-18 hours to get to the Kingpin ranking before realising that a season of incoming content and playing with friends online is the future of this game. While the difficulty rises as your ranks do, there is no variety in mission types down the line to keep your interest here, which results in everything becoming overly repetitive.
Visually, this game is admittedly spectacular. The intricately detailed water graphics work well enough with a dynamic weather system, one realistic enough to make those with sensitive tummies feel slightly seasick. Each part of your ship that you can customise and craft is beautifully realised on the sea, with cosmetic details and effects showing through when applied to your vessel.
It’s a shame that the human characters are lacking the same attention to detail. While they are not a major part of the campaign and you only really see them when accepting missions and on the docks for the social area, it does highlight the amount of work put into the naval design and water over general character design and writing.
The grand scale of naval battles and the desire to create and customise various ships kept me coming back for more, so it’s hard to complain in that respect. It does have a grindy “chop down this tree” mechanic to gather wood which feels extremely out of place (and very clunky to maneuver) but once you start being able to loot cargo and find your resources here, things really do take off. When you take into account cargo management on your ship that also takes into account the weight of your weapons, crew and armour and how this affects your ability to drive your ship and in turn how it acts in battle. It’s such a well-executed mechanic that blends in well with the naval gameplay.
Final Thoughts
Skull and Bones may not be the Black Flag spin-off we were hoping for. It is, however, a good base for hopefully a better game that will grow over time with more content from its season and hopefully, its growing player base that can show exactly how much there is to discover in this world. Grinding through repetitive missions to grow your ranks while also expanding your fleet and customising each ship with various weapons and cosmetics is still a good time.
This game was reviewed on both my PC and the Lenovo Legion Go, and to my surprise, the game runs beautifully on both systems, as I generally found myself enjoying the game mostly when out and about. The lack of story mode combined with the tendency to have to grind through missions may turn some away, however, there is still enough here for fans of this genre to have a great time. Hopefully, the seasonal content confirmed by Ubisoft will be enough for the game to flourish down the line in a similar way Sea of Thieves ultimately has today.
THREE AND A HALF STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
Highlights: Incredibly fun combat system; Ship customisation; Gorgeous visuals
Lowlights: Lack of story; Repetitive mission structure
Developer: Ubisoft Singapore
Publisher: Ubisoft
Platforms: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, PC
Available: Now
Review conducted on PC with a code provided by the publisher.
