Ubisoft on Skull and Bones: “[We wanted] to stay in the pirate fantasy”

At E3 2017, Ubisoft surprised us with a naval warfare game that looked like Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, but much more. They called it Skull & Bones. The comparison to Black Flag is warranted, as that's exactly what the game builds off of, but the team recently offered more insight as to why they divorced it from its Assassin's Creed origins (…not to be confused with Assassin's Creed Origins)

Ubisoft Singapore talked with GameSpot about their choice to make Skull & Bones its own IP. Managing director Olivier de Rotalier and CEO Yves Guillemot spoke on behalf of the developers.

"After Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, [we wanted] to stay in the pirate fantasy and to make it bigger and stronger," de Rotalier said.

The team at Ubisoft Singapore created a prototype featuring 1v1 naval warfare battles. They enjoyed the outcome, but it was "probably quite far from what Assassin's Creed wanted to do at the time," de Rotalier said. This convinced them to make it its own IP.

de Rotalier stated that a "pirate fantasy" was a very compelling idea and multiplayer just adds to it. Guillemot said that making the game its own IP gave the team more creative freedom."We didn't want the limits–creating a new IP gives you the chance to do whatever you want. It's a way to get more freedom," he said.

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag was a big hit. But admittedly, the overarching assassin story of the game was a bit lacking. The game was still great, but if Ubisoft continued pumping out pirate-themed Assassin's Creed games that are only loosely related to the Brotherhood, the series would likely suffer from an identity crisis. Separating Skull & Bones to just tell a pirate story is a great way to continue with their obviously popular naval battles without detracting from the Assassin's Creed story.

de Rotalier spoke more on the future of Skull & Bones as a franchise. "We are building a game that we want to support in the long term, that relies on strong mechanics; RPG, online. We want to build a strong service to be able to support a long-term experience. We are convinced that the core gameplay that we are building is big enough to experience on the long term and keep people engaged. We have a plan to make it last."

Skull & Bones doesn't have a release date as of yet, landing sometime in the distant Fall 2018. The beta, however, can be signed up for right now.