EXCLUSIVE: Skull & Bones Has Restarted Development and Will Not Launch in 2021 (And more from inside Ubisoft)

According to a source familiar with inner workings at Ubisoft who has asked not to be identified, the ship combat adventure title Skull & Bones had to restart development from scratch a second time just a few months ago. In their string of actions to combat sexual harassment allegations the past year, Ubisoft removed the managing director at their Singapore Studio, who is developing Skull & Bones. Our source has told us that around the same time, Skull & Bones was brought back to the drawing room table and had to begin work from the ground up. Game Luster was not able to confirm if these two events were directly connected. Our source has told us that the new alpha build is very similar Microsoft’s popular multiplayer pirate game Sea of Thieves, and uses a first-person POV when in the ship but turns to third-person when you exit the ship. They also said that the game is in pretty early stages right now and even is using many untextured boxes, so there’s no way it’ll be done in time for a 2021 launch and likely not even 2022.

Skull and bones
Skull & Bones

Game Luster received some additional information about several other projects in the works at Ubisoft from the same source.

Riders Republic

Our source stated that Riders Republic, the upcoming biking and skiing battle royale game, is nearly completed and will likely be announced with a very close release date at Ubisoft’s E3 conference. They described it as being buried under “loads of microtransactions” with several currencies and a battle pass. It’s unclear if the battle pass uses only real money or can be paid for with in-game money like Fortnite. Expect to see a yearly pass, a daily shop, and a wide variety of cosmetics in seasonal shops. Surprisingly, even with Ubisoft’s recent declaration of moving nearly all games to a free-to-play system, Riders Republic will launch at full retail price, although our source stated that everything about it “screams F2P.”  Riders Republic will require PS Plus and Xbox Live Gold to play on consoles.

Riders republic
Riders Republic

Rainbow Six Parasite

The recently renamed project Rainbow Six Parasite is fairly far into development and will likely launch later in 2021. Our source had a hands on with a build of Parasite last year and had a rather negative reaction to it, as it seems to have taken a complete turn into sci-fi and lost the military aspect altogether. They described a mid-sized map with alien hordes that all look roughly the same. Some have different abilities, but not enough to stand out or provide much variety. Black goo appears on the floor to slow down the players who are venturing around the map to shoot eggs until a swarm comes. Exterminating the swarm finishes the map. Rainbow Six Parasite will be free-to-play and will not feature a separate campaign mode; rather, the campaign and the multiplayer are the same

rainbow six
Rainbow Six Parasite

Other Miscellaneous Info

Our source stated that the upcoming Roller Champions from Ubisoft, which had a demo release last year, was “good fun” and will likely please fans. It will be free-to-play as well. Game Luster also received word that Ubisoft +, the $15/month subscription service that allows access to all Ubisoft games, is coming to consoles later this year.

(Correction: The article originally misidentified the game Roller Champions as Roller Derby.  We regret the error.)

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outlawq
outlawq
2 years ago

1st person on the ship huh…I guess (it shouldn’t have been this hard to make blackflag again without the Creed lol but their struggle is definitely them trying to figure out how to nickel dime the consumer with this title)