Hot on the heels of the announcement of yet another delay in the upcoming pirate game, Ubisoft has unveiled new gameplay footage of Skull and Bones that provides the most detailed look at how the game's multiplayer open world fits into its narrative elements.
Since its first announcement in 2017, Skull and Bones has changed focus several times, going from a multiplayer arcade pirate ship sim that had you chained to the helm to a freer open-world game where multiplayer serves as the backdrop for player-led missions.
Gameplay footage from Skull and Bones shows senior community manager Alexis Cretton and narrative director Joel Janisse stopping at a pirate outpost to get clues about a power struggle in the local region, off the coast of Africa. Following a clue, they end up in a settlement where a "robbery" begins and the pair open fire with their cannons, first on a defense tower and then on a pair of Company Royale frigates that arrive to drive them off.
Cretton says that while playing the production build, he's found it's easy to get distracted during a mission—there'll be interesting things along the way, and Janisse says the development team "would love for you to get lost in our world."
The couple finds their next clue in a sunken ship that washed up on a nearby island. As shown in the video above, the game features both naval combat and exploration on foot. Most of the action takes place aboard ships, but you can also explore outposts that function as social hubs and places to find new clues and contracts.
According to Janiss, the story is an alternate history of the Golden Age of Piracy, and although the events do not coincide with the real story, it touches on issues of colonialism, the plunder of resources and the exploitation of indigenous peoples by Western powers, whose fledgling economies became hooked on the new resources they found overseas. abroad.
We don't yet know the release date for Skull and Bones, but Ubisoft says it just needed "a little more" time to complete the game, which was due out on March 4th.
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