The anticipated game from Ubisoft is nearing its release after a long development. Skepticism has been replaced by enthusiasm and I can’t wait to play it in full swing.
I had no expectations from Skull and Bones. Rather, I couldn’t imagine that I could enjoy this pirate multiplayer game. Well, the opposite is true and I really enjoyed the time spent in the game. I thought it couldn’t possibly be possible. Every moment I was expecting something to spoil my experience. It didn’t happen, so I’ll just add at the beginning that we have a title here that, with good support from the developers, will easily survive for decades.
We’ve heard from the developers that every pirate will have humble beginnings. They were, but not exactly as I imagined. You are introduced to the game world by a cutscene that charts the sinking of your ship. Then comes a short character creation and it’s down to business. At first, I was gifted with a dilapidated cot that barely held two people. I thought this was exactly the humble beginning that was being talked about. It wasn’t long before I docked for the first time in Saint-Anne, the city of pirates. The meeting with the leader there resulted in me trying to be completely useless in his words and I started to complete various missions.
But this is where the humble beginnings end. The next task is to build a better ship. So I was a budgie for about twenty minutes. In this section I was introduced to several basic mechanics. We don’t buy ships, we make them. We can only buy a drawing, then it is up to us to collect enough materials, go to the right person who will melt the copper into bronze for us, and then when it is possible to build the ship with a builder. Cannons are available again from the blacksmith, and each category of raw materials has its own representative.
One thing that I really found incredibly weird is the mining of materials. Yes, the game is primarily focused on the ship itself, but mining copper or cutting down trees when I’m fifty meters away, and on a ship at that, was weird. However, the process itself is handled by a pleasant minigame where you have to hit the green square on the axis. Having already started the things that bothered me, I complain about another rather strange mechanic.
Ship handling is good overall. It behaves responsively, is intuitive, aiming is simple and at the same time it is not a complete sleeper. But I’ve noticed that if you want to go full sail, it uses up stamina. Like what? Why should fully furling the sails consume stamina? I’ll probably have to study the specialist literature on the maritime technology of the pirate era to fully understand if the sails hurt the hands and have to rest continuously.
But what really succeeded are the options. You have plenty of opportunities to do. Main quests, side quests that are either peaceful and mostly about delivering materials, or violent where you can hunt down other pirates. I’ll admit that despite the limited playing time I had on the beta, I couldn’t help myself and just had to cruise the waters for an hour and listen to the pirate songs that your crew sings to you on demand.
Successive completion of any tasks along with sinking other ships increases your reputation. The higher it is, the more options there are. New quests, equipment and ships will be unlocked. But it is not the only level that needs to be taken into account. Also important is the level of your ship, which increases independently as you upgrade it. Tasks usually have a specified recommended level, which is good to reach before starting it.
Personally, I wanted to choose the style of a well-mannered merchant or rather a smuggler, so that it fits better with the pirate theme. However, at least in the main missions, the game forces you to sink the ships of other factions. There are several of them in the game, and you build relationships with each of them separately. So it really bothered me when I had to sink merchant ships as part of a mission and thus antagonize the entire faction, which resulted in their other ships being immediately hostile to me.
On the other hand, I could at least get a good feel for the fight. It is simple at its core, but with the passage of time, a lot of tactical options open up, which are related to improving the weapons on the ship. Shooting from cannons is simple, just aim and shoot, you can also bump into enemies and if you get them to a low enough health value, then you can also board your crew, which basically just increases the amount of items obtained and as a bonus you get some special pieces.
Going back to tactics, you can mount any cannon on your ship if you can afford it. Some are good for short distances, some are good for long distances, and so on. So it’s up to you if you put the short ones up front and hit the ships and then roll in with a salvo from the cannons or if you put the sniper equivalent on the side.
Considering everything I experienced while playing it and how it affected me, I have to say that all my fears are over and I’m looking forward to the full release. The game is fun, well made and runs smoothly. Yes, there are a few things that aren’t exactly to my liking, but that’s always the case. I think if the developers listen to the community, which they seem to be doing already through their Insider program, we’re in for at least a good few years of pirate adventure.