How frightening is it when the developers of a long-announced game, which has likely gone through at least one reboot, have little confidence in its success?

Skull & Bones, which could be seen as a rival to Microsoft and Rare’s Sea of Thieves, was re-revealed in July, and we now know when the struggling French publisher plans to release the game. We’re not joking when we say struggling: Ubisoft has thrown Splinter Cell VR and Ghost Recon Frontline in the bin to cut costs, the latter of which was denounced by the community after the announcement anyway…

Kotaku has reported that Skull & Bones, a game that has gone through development hell at Ubisoft’s Singapore studio (which has been in the news for sexual harassment), is not a game that has much trust within the company. Some developers are sceptical about the game: they believe that Skull & Bones will be nowhere near the success that Ubisoft expects it to be. (At this point, one wonders what Yves Guillemot, the company’s CEO, must think when he reads about it in the media.)

According to the developers, who asked to remain anonymous, Skull & Bones’ development cost is the same as Ubisoft’s other blockbuster titles. Yet, they believe that apart from what has been shown so far, the game has little to offer, as every element of the pirate adventure lacks depth. However, they have no shortcomings regarding survival and resource-gathering simulation mechanisms. So this game may have more smoke than flame, which could be embarrassing for Ubisoft…

Skull & Bones will be released on November 8 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series and PC (Ubisoft Store, Epic Games Store; and yes, they dropped the PlayStation 4, Xbox One pairing). With God of War: Ragnarok coming the day after on PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4, there’s already reason to doubt the game’s success… as some of its developers reportedly don’t trust it either!

Source: PSL