Ubisoft's Skull & Bones Delayed Yet Again

Gamers dreaming of being Jack Sparrow will have to wait even longer to take to the high seas. In their earnings call today, Ubisoft revealed that Skull & Bones would now release sometime in 2022 or 2023. This marks the 4th time the game’s release has been pushed back since it was originally set to release in late 2018. Games with multiple release delays frequently have troubled launches — as we saw not too long ago — but Ubisoft’s leadership team sounds confident in the future of Skull & Bones.

“We strongly believe in the team’s creative vision, and they have been given an increasingly ambitious mandate for the game,” chief financial officer FrÃ©dÃ©rick Duguet said in today’s earnings call. “Production, led by [Ubisoft] Singapore, has been advancing well over the past 12 months, and the promise is better than ever. The additional time will allow the team to fully deliver on its vision.”

The delay is, at least in part, due to a shift in the scope of the game. Back in September of 2020, Ubisoft Singapore’s creative director Elisabeth Pellen said that the studio “…simply needed more time. We dreamt something bigger for Skull and Bones, and these ambitions naturally came with bigger challenges”. While it’s good to see that Ubisoft is still supportive of the project, and willing to give it the time it needs, one wonders if Ubisoft Singapore hasn’t bitten off more than they can chew with Skull & Bones.

At least while you wait, you’ll be able to get some of your pirate fill with the upcoming Skull & Bones TV series… maybe. As of writing, the TV series has no release date, so whether it will make its way to the small screen before the game itself is released is anybody’s guess. The mere existence of the show does suggest that Ubisoft is committed to their new IP, which first grew out of the work Ubisoft Singapore did on the naval combat for Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag.

Should the delay inspire confidence that the game will release finished, or perhaps fear that Ubisoft has overreached? Let us know in the comments!