Why Skull and Bones Failed

Skull and Bones was supposed to be Ubisoft's AAA pirate game that blew all other pirate games out of the water. Based around Assassin's Creed Black Flag - it was destined to be a commercial success. But, due to poor management, it failed and was a complete disaster.

0:00 - 2:48 - The Rise of Skull & Bones
2:49 - 4:21 - Opera
4:22 - 16:04 - The Fall of Skull & Bones

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[thijsdeboer]

Imagine never being able to top the naval combat of your own game, which came out over a decade ago. And naval combat wasn't even the main focus in that one

[macmac]

Literally all they had to do was make a black flag sequel without the assassin stuff.

[piyoweb]

First ever AAAA game, first ever AAAA failure.... 😂😂😅😂

[JaxiPaxified]

Man, sailing games have had it rough. There are very few games out there that capture the feeling of the trope.

[planescaped]

What everyone wants: A modern Sid Meyers Pirates with more ships, more combat features, more expansive trading, and more governors daughters.

What we got: Glorified shitty mobile game.

[TheMcgillacuddy]

This game never had a chance in hell. Every time they announced how basic and barebones the features were, nobody was ever interested. Hell, I don't think even Ubisoft was interested in this. This game would've easily been canceled if Singapore wasn't invested in it.

[Egitheegg]

0:10 ehm quadruple A!!! Big words for a big failure, fitting

[Micah__]

I bought it for 10 dollars from Best Buy and played it for 30 minutes and went back to playing Alien Isolation. Haha

[Varangian_af_Scaniae]

It would have been so great if they didn't duck it up. Building your own ship, upgrading it, decorating it inside and out. PvE\PvP zones. Just imagine you could take trophies from fallen enemies to decorate your ship with.
The possibilities are endless. Imagine having perma death races. People start with the same type of ship and during xx amout of days fighting it out for no1 spot. But if your boat is sunk you have to restart. That is just one type of event they could have run.

[voodooopaque]

I remember i got hate for saying this game is gonna fail before it released. I called it “Barebones” because of the lack of content the game had

[Lanokota]

Ubisoft is worse than a joke. I wasn't laughing when they shut down The Crew. They didn't make things right with their customers, so now I just look forward to the day they close their doors for good. Also, I'm tired of online only games. If they expect us to pay AAAA prices, then I want AAAA ownership of my product.

[nickythepro]

It's just terrible. Miles behind ASC4

[TheCommanderChaz]

I bet in the last 7 years of the development no one actually thought "maybe we should play Black Flag again and remind ourselves of what we were aiming for" and if they had done that it would have saved it

[strikeforce]

It just impressive how bad SnB development went. And the worst part of all, I am 99% sure Ubisoft did NOT learn the lesson

[mukables]

They should have made a Black Flag trilogy. Three games featuring Kenways development as an assassin, just as they did with Ezio.

... but then you remember we're talking about Poundland EA ... sorry, Ubisoft.

[waifuman]

Nobody asked why because everyone knows the answer. The game is simply terrible

[theflyingdutchman]

Interesting, funny certainly ironic even how none of these teams had ANY idea of what players wanted.

While the original idea was exactly what we wanted, a *Assassins creed Black Flag* without the whole *AC* story.

[wiper]

Nice video, enjoyed watching it :) Well written and structured.

Mind if I give some constructive critique?
The editing, specifically the popups is overwhelming in the sheer amount. I don't mind them from time to time to visualize what is the subject, but I don't need the logo of ubisoft EVERY time you mention them, nor the name of the game popping up the cover-art.

Less is more my friend :) Saying this to help, not to hurt. Hope it comes across like that.

[bitgoldexpert]

I think that the mistake they made with this game, is that they wanted more assassins creed but less assassins creed. When they realized it looked too much like Black Flag, they entirely changed its gameplay.

[bramv]

they literally just had to reskin black flag and most would probably be happy