The long awaited title Skull and Bones closer to release and more pertinent details about the game are finally being revealed to fans. Now that many core aspects of the title’s gameplay have been confirmed, there is one element in particular that has proved interesting and potentially disturbing to many fans in the long run.
It has recently become known that Skull and Bones will have no land battles, with all in-game combat centered entirely around the remote game mechanics. Many fans had expected that ship boarding and land battles would be a big part of the Skull and Bones experience, so it’s extremely important for Ubisoft to get its fights right.
The basics of Skull and Bones
Skull and Bones is an upcoming open-world action-adventure title, in which players will embark on a memorable career as a pirate captain. Developed and published by Ubisoft, Skull and Bones was originally announced in 2017 as an expansion for the well-received Assassin’s Creed Black Flagthough it has gone through a lot of changes since this initial reveal.
Five years after the original announcement, Skull and Bones has finally been set for a concrete November 8 release date, settling for a less historically-bound story focused on personal character progression. Skull and Bones will see players start at the bottom rung of the pirate ladder and eventually ascend to a respected pirate captain, in charge of a fleet of various ships.
With so many details about the game being revealed so quickly, many can easily be overlooked by accident. However, the recent confirmation that Skull and Bones will not have land battles or ships on board is a detail that has understandably received a lot of attention.
Why Skull and Bones Lack of Land Battle Matters
Land battles are a feature that is actively expected in a pirate-based game, so it’s obvious why skull and bones’ the lack of it is so much talked about. It can be argued that the popular title Sea of Thieves is Skull and Bones‘ direct contemporary competitor, and while the former is more cartoonishly styled, it has a heavy focus on land-based combat, which sets it apart from the latter’s proposed gameplay.
Next to this, Sea of Thieves also features organic boarding and raiding as a core game mechanic, another element that is seemingly missing Skull and Bones. As a result, given how similar the two titles are, Ubisoft has to put a huge amount of effort into getting the ship battles right.
Due to the absence of ship boarding and land battles, Skull and Bones has no choice but to manage an extremely dynamic, engaging and polished level of ship-to-ship naval combat. Fortunately, with the focus on the player becoming a pirate captain, it’s clear that Skull and Bones is curating the player experience around hopefully refined and tactical sailing mechanics, fleet utilization strategy, and well-timed ranged combat. Without this, the title’s primary gameplay will undoubtedly suffer without the variety of land battles.
Skull and Bones will have a massive in-game world, which only reinforces the need for a focus on refined sailing and the combat it promotes. Hopefully, Ubisoft is well aware of how the title’s gameplay can be limited by the omission of land-based combat, and will therefore seek to broaden the game’s core identity and conflict through the more strategic and nuanced world of naval warfare.
Skull and Bones out November 8 for PC, PS5, Stadia, and Xbox Series X/S.
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