The long-delayed Skull and Bones loses its 2022 release date

By George Yang September 28, 2022

Ubisoft has announced that it has delayed its upcoming pirate adventure game, Skull and Bones (again), to March 9, 2023. It was originally slated to launch on November 8 this year.

“Ahoy there, privateers. Our team is hard at work polishing and balancing the experience ahead of the worldwide launch. As a result, we’ve made the tough decision to move our release date to March 9, 2023,” Ubisoft says in a statement. “We’re very eager for you all to get your hands on Skull and Bones and dive in headfirst to the dangerous and exciting world of building your own pirate empire. To give you the best possible experience we’ve decided to take a little more time to make sure we can deliver exactly that.”

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— Skull and Bones (@skullnbonesgame) September 28, 2022

Ubisoft also says that it will hold an open beta for the game in the near future and will share more details about how to register for it soon.

Skull and Bones was first revealed during E3 2017 and was set to release sometime in 2018. However, the game suffered multiple delays and was finally given a definitive release date of November 8 earlier this year.

Ubisoft Singapore is in charge of the project, but reportedly, there were development issues surrounding it, including studio in-fighting, conflicting directives from Ubisoft HQ, and even sexual harassment. Reportedly, Skull and Bones would’ve been canceled a long time ago, but Ubisoft made a contract with the Singapore government and is obligated to release the game as it had received tax subsidies.

At the very least, Skull and Bones doesn’t have to compete with other big games coming out in November, such as God of War: Ragnarok, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, and Sonic Frontiers.

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George Yang is a freelance games writer for Digital Trends. He has written for places such as IGN, GameSpot, The Washington…

Gaming

Surprise! Ubisoft delays Skull and Bones yet again

skull and bones release date

The oft-delayed Skull and Bones still isn't ready for release, as Ubisoft confirmed it has delayed the pirate game for the sixth time. Skull and Bones will no longer release on March 9, and now just has a vague release window of "early 2023 to 2024." At this point, we can't really be surprised that this happened again.
First announced at E3 2017, Skull and Bones was initially intended for release in 2018. It finally resurfaced last year after a couple of delays with a November 8, 2022 release date. That morphed into a March 9, 2023 release date, which Ubisoft has now nixed for a vague release window that basically amounts to them wanting to release Skull and Bones sometime this fiscal year. Still, Ubisoft seems optimistic about the pirate game despite its never-ending string of delays.
"Players will be able to discover the beauty of Skull and Bones in the upcoming beta phase," a press release explains. "The additional time has already paid off and brought impressive improvements to its quality, which has been confirmed by recent playtests. We believe players will be positively surprised by its evolution. We have decided to postpone its release in order to have more time to showcase a much more polished and balanced experience and to build awareness."
This delay announcement comes as part of a larger update to the company's financial targets for this fiscal year and next, where Ubisoft detailed the negative impacts of "surprisingly slower" game sales for Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope and Just Dance 2023. Not only has Skull and Bones been delayed, but Ubisoft has also canceled three unannounced games that were in development atits various studios. Ubisoft's "recent launches have not performed as well as expected," so the company is focusing its efforts "on building our brands and live services into some of the most powerful within the industry." Ubisoft will also reduce its spending by 200 million euros over the next two years.
Thankfully for Ubisoft, its next fiscal year, which runs through March 2024, looks a lot more interesting thanks to games like Assassin's Creed Mirage and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. Now we just have to wait and see if Skull and Bones will also be part of that, or if it continues to get delayed.

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Every video game release date announced at The Game Awards 2022

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The Game Awards is home to many new game announcements and release date reveals every single year. At last year's show, we received release dates and windows for games like Tunic and Babylon's Fall. Throughout 2022, we've already gotten release dates for big games such as The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, the remakes of Dead Space and Resident Evil 4, and Dead Island 2, but there are still more release dates that needed to be revealed. That's where The Game Awards 2022 came in.

While the first few months of 2023 were already packed with new game releases like Forspoken, Atomic Heart, and Skull & Bones, the Game Awards 2022 added many more titles to the list, some of which are coming much sooner than expected. Here are all of the release windows that were announced for upcoming games at The Game Awards 2022:

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One of the most popular historical eras covered in games, outside of World War II, is most likely the Three Kingdoms era in Chinese history. If the name doesn't ring any bells, just think of the Dynasty Warriors games, which all focus on the wars and battles of this point in history. However, unlike those muso-style games, which involve you cutting through hundreds upon hundreds of fodder enemies in simple but satisfying action, Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty looks like it will be a very different take on its depiction of these events.

Coming from Team Ninja, which has just come off the major hits in the Nioh titles, as well as other members previously working on Bloodborne, Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty also appears to be taking influence from the Souls formula, though with a heavy dose of the fantastic also playing a part. There are a lot of elements about this game not shown off in the footage released so far, so if you're ready for a dive into ancient China, here's everything we know about Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty.