Skull and Bones Creative Director talks separating from Assassin’s Creed and the ocean being “a threat”

Every year, Ubisoft always brings at least one surprise game demo to E3 2017, with Watch Dogs, The Division, Rainbow Six: Siege, and Ghost Recon: Wildlands being a few past examples. This year was Skull & Bones, an open oceanic multiplayer pirate game where players build up their own ships with their own crew and face off against each other in the quest for plunder.

The game's Creative Director, Justin Farren, sat down with Gamespot to talk about a variety of topics including giving the game a separate identity from Black Flag as well as threats to the player outside of enemy vessels.

When asked if there would be any oceanic elements that could potentially harm the player, Farren emphasized that the ocean was a beast in and of itself to tame:

"Specific ingredients are gonna come, we're gonna share more about those, but the important thing to realize is that the ocean itself is something you're gonna have to master, and as a player, that means being able to overcome those things. You're only seeing right now one setting of our Beaufort, that's the wave and the wind reaction, so those things become more intense. We're able to throttle those and create different encounters for players. When I think about my vision for the ocean itself, I want players to feel as if the ocean is a threat."

Mastering wind direction has already been revealed as a key component to winning in multiplayer, as there is a distinct speed advantage that it can give you. We've only seen the feature in its most basic form with the E3 gameplay demo, but it would stand to reason that not every battle the player engages in will be a bright and sunny day. How cool would it have to be to contend with a raging storm alongside an enemy player, perhaps using the elements in some sort of risk vs. reward system?

When talking about Assassin's Creed, Farren acknowledges that Black Flag's ship battles are the building blocks of the Skull & Bones experience, but the notion of being an assassin doesn't apply to the game.

"When it comes to the type of experience you have with Assassin's Creed, Assassin's Creed is a very specific fantasy about being an assassin, about being in a crowd, and that's not the game we wanted to make. We wanted to make something that really leveraged the power of those huge, massive ships. You'll notice that we have a lot of what we call "ship porn", where we really focused on the details and intricacies of the ship and we bring the ship to life and make it a character of its own, and that's something we wanted to do."

Farren served as the closing Producer on Black Flag and noted that experimentation on the game's naval mechanics, namely putting two people in a single environment, is what got the ball rolling on Skull & Bones. Since there seems to be very little outside of the ship combat itself, it doesn't make much sense to slap the Assassin's Creed name on it for the sake of branding, which allows the art team to take more artistic liberties. Hence the "ship porn."

Skull & Bones is shaping up to be a unique entry in the multiplayer arena, even if details remain a tad sparse. The game is still a ways off and won't be released until Fall 2018, so keep yourself glued to GameZone for all things Skull & Bones.

Source: [Gamespot]