Skull and Bones | Between treasures and shipwreck

The latest from Ubisoft, Skull and Bones, fulfills its primary mandate quite well: offering epic sea combat in a huge world to explore, in solo or cooperative mode, in the shoes of a pirate who must increase his bad reputation and improve his ship. But it is not a continuation ofAssassin’s Creed: Black Flag and the story is very thin.

Developed for more than ten years, postponed six times, Skull and Bones was all the more anticipated as the CEO of Ubisoft recently presented it as a “quadruple-A”. We thus justified the selling price of $79.99 -$119.99 in the deluxe edition – for an online multiplayer game which was to be free, the famous recipe of Fortnite which makes the studios salivate. The fact that it was Ubisoft Singapore leading the charge added a layer of excitement, since it is to this studio that we owe the naval combat in Black Flagstill considered 11 years later by many to be the best opus of the franchise Assassin’s Creed.

Skull and Bones, if we rely on the rather frosty reception to which it has been entitled since its release last Friday, will not mark history in the same way. It is mainly criticized for the poverty of its scenario, questionable mechanics and a few bugs still present.

From Zero to Kingpin

We were able to spend around ten hours in this Skull and Bones, reaching the fourth rank out of ten levels of “infamy”, that of filibuster. Some criticism is deserved, but this unique game has qualities that make it particularly time-consuming.

Here we personify a pirate – it’s up to you to decide on their gender and appearance – who is rampant in 17^e century in different sectors of the Indian Ocean. He starts from scratch when his ship is destroyed in a clash with the British and must climb the ranks from the port of Sainte-Anne, where the brutal John Scurlock rules.

Your objective: become a “Kingpin” like him, by facing three regular armies, the French, the Dutch and the British, and by juggling four factions, the Ungwanas, the Clan of Fara, the Dominion of Rempah and the People of the Sea.

Summed up in one sentence, your mission is to loot enough to accumulate materials and money to upgrade your ship and grow in reputation. You can blindly attack anyone at sea or fulfill specific contracts that generally pay more.

You can carry out this mission alone or join other online players that you meet in the ports. You then fight certain battles together and share the loot, which is greater when several players collaborate. It is theoretically possible to chat with your partners but this function was disabled each time we tried it.

Lots of choice

The heart of this game is sailing and fighting at sea. The images here are magnificent and the mechanics are much more subtle than in Black Flag. Your crew provides you with the sail you need but becomes exhausted if you push them too much. You must arm yourself with enough ammunition, food and repair kits to stand your ground against the enemy.

And once the enemy is weakened, you can launch a boarding attack if you are close enough. To the disappointment of some, there’s no hand-to-hand combat at this point: you’re just collecting your loot. If you are sunk, you must return to collect your cargo before a pirate steals it from you.

We could describe for hours all the subtleties of your ship’s equipment and armament, of which there are ten types, increasingly powerful and expensive. Your money and materials will allow you to buy increasingly devastating cannons, bombards and mortars. Your equipment includes navigation tools, including better glasses, hunting tools for catching fish and animals, harvesting tools for sawing wood, salvaging materials from shipwrecks or mining.

Dialogues punctuate your journey through pirate society, as you meet the leaders of different factions, but your character does not speak, he only responds with proposed choice of phrases. Your crew sings and comments when you are attacked or when interesting loot looms on the horizon.

Charms and imperfections

We deplored a few bugs during our test, the game freezing on two occasions during a dialogue. The mechanics are complex and we are far from having understood everything. For example, we received a “Sentenced to death” alert on several occasions because we allegedly betrayed the Wheelhouse. It was canceled without explanation a few seconds later. Although we added a Knowledge section, it is still difficult to understand what many objects are used for, where to find the requested materials, and to whom they should be given.

And if the franchise Assassin’s Creed taught us to accept all the missions that are offered to us, even if it means accomplishing them later, we have never succeeded in Skull and Bones to rediscover our missions. It seems like you have to do one at a time.

Even if we are not particularly fond of online multiplayer, of these tactical shooting games whose primary goal is to improve one’s arsenal, Skull and Bones has an undeniable charm. The sea, the naval battles, the discovery of all these ports, islands and bloodthirsty characters are worth the detour and quickly won us over. “From the coasts of Africa to the lush tropical islands of the East Indies”, this is an ambitious game, perhaps too ambitious, but one that offers a solid foundation for these “persistent universes” that Ubisoft dreams of.