Skull and Bones Preview

This weekend, the open beta for Skull and Bones launched, and I’ve heard a lot of mixed opinions. So, naturally, I had to try it out for myself. After all, I like to think that I’m a big fan of learning about pirates, and my long-term love of One Piece even allowed me to study pirates while working on a short story for my historical fiction course at uni.

So, I downloaded the open beta and had a looksie. From the get-go, I can’t say I was particularly impressed. It didn’t help that Ubisoft had been hailing this as the first AAAA game and planned to launch it at £70. That can only lead to high expectations, so imagine my disappointment when I saw a sub-par character creator which only allowed you to have an idea of what your character looks like by showing you their face. Considering the choice of including full-body tattoos and scarring, I would have expected more. But perhaps I’ve just been too spoiled by the likes of Baldur’s Gate 3.

Before you reach the character creation, you’ll be launched straight into combat. Now, look. I understand that the ships need to tilt for turning, but in my knowledge, pirate ships didn’t tilt nearly as much as the ships I’ve seen in the beta. Plus, Ubisoft has also stated that this will be somewhat accurate to pirate times, and I’m here to just say: Ubisoft, I don’t believe you. My main argument begins with the way you can easily manoeuvre the cannons — cannons can’t fire everywhere, they can only move vertically, and it’s partially due to their lack of versatility that they couldn’t be used. These cannons feel far too modern and don’t seem to represent the time period as well as they would have believed.

Skull and Bones takes place in the 17th Century; however, Ubisoft never declared which period of piracy it would be most accurate to. There’s no specific date, and if you’re familiar with the Golden Age of Piracy, then you may be misled into believing that Skull and Bones would cover the Buccaneering Age, which is the most popular. After all, the Buccaneering Age is the time period that’s most known in popular culture and covered in Pirates of the Caribbean, with the main island being the island of Tortuga. Dear reader, Skull and Bones ignores this period, and for that, I have to admit a sense of betrayal.

However, it goes into the second distinct period of the Golden Age, most notably, the Pirate Round. There’s a lot of talk about the Dutch and their control of the spice trade and the British and the French competing against the United East India Company, the world’s first megacorporation. In fact, while you may think that piracy would be all about looting and pillaging, we’re looking at a game that is solely focused on capitalism. It’s an interesting choice, but it never feels like there’s much depth.

As you become the captain of your own ship, you find yourself working with the pirate, John Scurlock, as opposed to any of the actual famous pirates of the time. Plus, you spend your time around the island of Sainte-Anne, which is described as one of the major ports in the area. Dear reader, Sainte-Anne was never a major port. No, considering this is set in Africa, might I point out that Madagascar would be where the central port is, specifically, the Ile Sainte-Marie. I don’t believe the Island of Sainte-Anne would have even appeared on the map at this point, and Sainte-Anne is more known for being discovered in 1742, and then a French settlement was made in 1770. How could it be a major island on the docks when it hadn’t been founded yet? How?

While I’ve distracted you with my inconsistencies, let me go back to the gameplay. You’re given a few quests in the beginning, and you don’t really get any freedom until your third level when you gain access to the job and bounty boards. While John Scurlock’s story is interesting, it mostly expands on worldbuilding, which is best described as a mishmash of facts from maritime history. For example, let’s take the Sea People. The Sea People, historically, is a collection of nine different tribes of seafarers who would attack the coast of Egypt and sail around Africa. This, notably, happened in the Middle Ages. As in the 1200s. There weren’t actually any reports of them in the 17th Century, and while I understand the desire to explore the diverse backgrounds within piracy, I would also like a degree of accuracy regarding who was doing what and when.

The other faction introduced in the beta is the Clan of Fara, whom I would assume were named after the Farah Garad, a Somali clan. Admittedly, there’s not a lot of information about the Clan of Fara, and I’m only guessing the tenuous links to the Farah Garad based on name and geography more than anything. But, from accuracy to pirates, it’s just not hitting me. Honestly, I just wish we had a little bit more going on in terms of what’s happening with the story, as so far, from what I’ve noticed, most of the gameplay does happen on the sea.

You can only dock at the port, and you can stop at foundries and shipwrecks, but you can only explore the specific locations given to you. Admittedly, I didn’t mind the ship combat — It killed a fair bit of time for me, but it could be a little bit annoying at times. Especially if you didn’t want to hit another player who happened to be doing the same quest as you. To whoever was constantly attacking the same ship as me while I did my quest, shame on you. Shame on you.

Sure, there’s no doubt that Skull and Bones is a pretty game. But I just wish I could do more than sail around and fight enemy ships or hunt animals. I just wish that there was more substance over style. The fact that I couldn’t leave the ship to craft, nor could I actually seek out crewmates to hire, actually disappointed me a fair bit.

There are only so many times I can sail around while enjoying my crew singing sea shanties. Plus, the enemy ships actually won’t attack you unless you attack them first. Considering I had to smuggle some weapons to several different islands, I would have expected more of a challenge than to simply sail over and find no ships from the supposedly aggressive Clan of Fara, despite being warned that they may stop me. It’s all just a bit underwhelming and certainly not worth the AAAA rating that Ubisoft keeps saying it’ll be.

Of course, that’s not to say that this is a bad game. Personally, I’m just annoyed that they said it would be accurate to piracy when it’s not really. I just wish they said it would be a fun pirate game with the possibility of fighting a dinosaur in later seasons. If they weren’t describing it as an open-world co-op action RPG that would be accurate to piracy, I’d probably appreciate it a lot more. But, as it is, I don’t think I’d want to pay £70 for it.