Skull & Bones Has Passed Alpha Stage After Eight Years of Choppy Waters

New report highlights rough development.

If you've ever found yourself wondering what's happening with Skull & Bones, Kotaku's recently published report on the game is pretty eye-opening. Ubisoft announced the game back at E3 2017, promising a swashbuckling pirate action game with some inherited tech from Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag. Since then, the game has been delayed multiple times and, according to this new report, restarted more than once as developers struggle to settle on precisely what the game is.

The report cites quotations from multiple anonymous sources from within Ubisoft, and it all tells a pretty damning account of development hell. The project started out initially in 2013 as a multiplayer expansion for Black Flag and, following growth in scope and all sorts of troubles, it's still nowhere near complete eight years later.

Fast-forwarding to now, Ubisoft's statement on the game's status claims it's just passed the Alpha phase: "The Skull & Bones team are proud of the work they’ve accomplished on the project since their last update with production just passing Alpha," a spokesperson says. The publisher adds that it's "excited to share more details when the time is right", which hopefully isn't too far off.

The report is very interesting if you're into the work that goes on behind the scenes. It tells of management changing hands, numerous changes in design and direction that would lead to months of work going down the drain, and differences between how studios work causing further issues.

With the news that the game has passed Alpha, there's still some hope that we'll see Skull & Bones eventually. It's made some progress at last — fingers crossed the game can resurface in the future with a clear vision. Are you still keen for Skull & Bones?

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