230°

If Skull and Bones is a “quadruple-A” game, what’s a quintuple-A game?

Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot defends Skull and Bones price tag by billing it as a "quadruple-A" game, but that's not a good enough reason.

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theloadout.com
LG_Fox_Brazil111d ago

After playing the closed and open beta of Skull and Bones and getting Helldivers 2, I can assure you that the latter, which is 20 bucks cheaper, is a far, far superior game in every sense of the word. Skull and Bones would be, already, a tough sell at US$ 29.99, let alone at US$ 59.99

OtterX111d ago

The fact that they didn't bother implementing the ship boarding/raiding from Black Flag makes it feel lazy and more like an Ubisoft AA to me. I don't care if they went all out on the graphics, they skimped on what mattered, the gameplay.

OtterX111d ago (Edited 111d ago )

I found this summary on Reddit, and this all screams corners cut/budget mismanagement.

" 1) You can't physically leave your ship. You can go to land but its a teleport action. You cannot just jump off your ship and swim to shore. Equally, when your ship is docked 2 foot from the shoreline, you have to take a darned boat or go to the embarkmant point. It snaps the immersion

2) You cannot board ships. There is a boarding element to the game but you simply sail up next to the target, press triangle, and you get a cut scene simulating the boarding.

3) Equally, there are loads of wrecks, but you don't explore any of them. You just sail next to them and do a bizarre QTE / Minigame and get your rewards

4) The same weird QTE / Minigame is used for resources, you see trees on an island, and rather than leaving the ship you do a wood sawing QTE and on you go.

5) The on land experience generally is really really bad. You go to a location, you disembark, you wander round a really big area with very little going on. Talk to a merchant, maybe talk to a captain, light a bonfire, and you leave.

6) Pretty bad facial models and poor voice acting

7) Tedious missions, it really is just fetch / return or sink / fetch / return"

So yea, if we don't even call GTA or Red Dead Redemption "AAAA" with the obsession to detail in them, how the hell did Skull & Bones get called a "AAAA"? Just tons of lazy corners cut and a desperate attempt to recover a sunk budget from what I've seen.

elazz111d ago

At this point they should have just reskinned Black Flag looking more like Pirates of the Caribbean, have modern graphics options, tone down some AC gameplay mechanics while adding new pirate mechanics. Could have had a dev cycle of 3 years and we would be playing the sequel by now.

JackBNimble110d ago

It's just a lot of chest pounding and bogus claims to convince people to buy a game that's never going to sell very well.

thorstein110d ago

Clarification for #1. You can hold down a button to board your ship from anywhere.

The rest are pretty spot on.

What is weird is that you can have your crew fire muskets at the opposing ships too. I miss the boarding of black flag.

gold_drake111d ago

please, dont take what ubisoft said serious

they dont know what they're talking about.

Knightofelemia111d ago

I am still getting FF7 Rebirth over this sinking ship. No matter how many A's you throw in front of Skull and Bones I am not getting it. I hate always online PVP loot and shoot shit. 11 yrs later and Black Flag is getting its DLC called Skull and Bones.

antikbaka111d ago

the thing is skull and bones doesn't have always pvp

still shit game though

XiNatsuDragnel111d ago

I am going to say why you lying?

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60°

Chorus of Havoc Sets Sail For Skull And Bones

Today, Ubisoft announced the launch of Skull and Bones’ second season, “Chorus of Havoc” in which players will face the maniacal Hubac Twins – the Compagnie Royale’s enforces who rampage through the seas.

240°

Skull and Bones’ “tremendous response” to Season 1 may surprise you

Yes, Ubisoft's divisive pirate RPG Skull and Bones appears to be sailing on the tides of success, as Ubisoft prepares to launch Season 2.

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theloadout.com
kenpachi12d ago

I wonder how much Ubisoft payed for this article to be written.

Skuletor12d ago

I wonder how much a AAAA journalist would cost too.

BeHunted12d ago (Edited 12d ago )

Maybe it was Sony?

OtterX12d ago

Reminds me of the E3 after the Fallout 76 launch, where the Bethesda team came out on stage hyping how great the game was and had people actually cheering in the audience. (Despite all the negative reviews and feedback floating around the internet at that time.)

neutralgamer199211d ago

But would we be really surprised to find out S&B did well? There are million s of gamers who don’t even arch reviews and just buy what looks cool.

Remember for honor and how much hate it got for the ridiculous amount of micro transactions and player progress be behind a pay wall. Well guess what it’s still going on and one of most successful games for UBI. We think few weeks of hate or dislike matters when most publishers plan for that and start pushing it harder once journalists have moved on to other games

NBA-K is basically a digital casino yet it’s generating hundreds of millions

NFL and FIFA player cards generate EA billions in micro transactions

We don’t buy them but just look up on YouTube and how many people have invested thousands into some of theee games. And 2K pays these YouTubers to highlight the digital casino

We are the problem. We refuse to speak with our wallets. When it’s our favorite game we become hypocrites saying things like no one is being forced to buy

+ Show (1) more replyLast reply 11d ago
RhinoGamer8812d ago

Does anyone have accurate gameplay numbers from Steam or PSN? I smell snow job...

Profchaos12d ago (Edited 12d ago )

I recall seeing a fairly low concurrent player base that was helped by the free trial (likely the metric they are using internally to push for season 2)

S2Killinit12d ago

If true, it goes to show that the negative press response was not reflecting reality. I personally thought omitting land traversal was a huge miss. But i also thought there was some things that were great about it. Lets see which story was true and which was made up (or worse, paid for)

Zeref12d ago (Edited 12d ago )

I couldn't find any redeeming qualities about the game. Except maybe the graphics look decent?Please enlighten me. It feels like this was a bad mobile gaming turned into a console game.

S2Killinit11d ago (Edited 11d ago )

I haven’t played it. But what I was seeing looked to capture some of the magic of Black Flag which was an excellent game. I felt that they could build on it and hoped that they would add land battles/exploration to it. The graphics do look good. And its not just another fps live service. Thats all. I dont really know much else about it, except I like the concept of playing as a pirate, with that sense of freedom and exploration.

Zeref11d ago

Yeah no it's nothing like Black Flag.

Friendlygamer12d ago

No data just pr talk. The same site has an article talking about how the price of the game was slashed quickly post release, these sites treat us like fools lol

InUrFoxHole12d ago

What exactly is you're arguement? Did you read the article?

jjb198112d ago

They're right. There is no argument either. The game is a turd and Ubisoft is doubling down on that turd. It's all fancy PR talk with no actual substance. I don't know what "argument" you're looking for. I read the article. It sounds like Ubisoft asked for a redo on their "AAAA" "game". Trash game and trash company.

Friendlygamer12d ago (Edited 12d ago )

Price decrease articles are typically made to make it seem like a gaming is flopping, they're often poorly researched and meaningless.
The article about the game thriving is also meaningless because it contains no data, it's basically corporate propaganda, even suicide squad is getting a season 2

In resume, not only this site plays both sides, it does it lazily and cynically because they don't care about quality, what they care about is clicks from us ( fools )

InUrFoxHole12d ago (Edited 12d ago )

@ jb
🤣 all it says is thanksfor the support. It's not like they're saying hey it's better than what you've seen come buy it. Lol you guys will whine about anything
@ Friendly
Gotcha when you referenced the other articles was like... uh doesn't that make it non biased? Basically you prefer stats with these articles or some sort of metric. I'm tracking. All I can say is... not everything is an amazing read or comment on n4g, lol. Game on!

Friendlygamer12d ago (Edited 12d ago )

Skull and bones TReMENDoUS ReSPoNSe. Prove it gaming journalist !! Prove it

jjb198112d ago (Edited 12d ago )

@InYourFaceHole Use all the emojis you need in order to feel better. Your latest comment is just a "save face" comment. Everybody knows you're a Ubisoft simp now. I hope you got what you wanted with your $190 Rare Earth Metal Ultimate Clandestine Epic Edge Lord Edition.

+ Show (3) more repliesLast reply 11d ago
TheColbertinator12d ago

Another paid AAAA article from Ubisoft

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160°

Top 30 Most Disappointing Video Games

Despite all the hype, marketing, development time and resources behind them, these blockbuster titles would disappoint fans.

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gamingbolt.com
shadowT43d ago

Days Gone? I love Days Gone.

solideagle42d ago

I think I platinumed it, It was awesome especially the first time you come across the horde

peppeaccardo42d ago

One of the best open world zombie game ever. Very engaging great story graphics and all.
These mofo should go back playing starfield and change phil's diaper.
GFYS!!

RhinoGamer8812d ago

Truly a surprise play for me. Had a blast, after 3 patches...

thorstein43d ago

The Order 1886 wasn't disappointing.

It was great.

Maybe do an article about Games Journalists Lied About. That would be a good read.

FPSRUSSIA43d ago (Edited 43d ago )

I Agree The order 1886 is Great but Short to bad there wont be a Sequel since the Developers Moved on to other Platforms.

DustMan42d ago

I thought it was great while it lasted. As soon as things got interesting and the action picked up the game ended. When it was over I legit was like "that's all of it?"

jimb0j0nes43d ago

Sure, the campaign was terrible, but MW3 isn't even the top three most disappointing COD games...

anast42d ago

That's a lot of Bethesda games on that list. Where's Starfield?

TwoPicklesGood42d ago

Whole lot of Sony games with Forsaken, Days Gone, Risen of the Ronin, and The Order 1886.

anast42d ago

In reality only one of those Sony games is actually just okay, and the others are good to solid. Whereas the Bethesda ones are objectively bad.

Tacoboto42d ago

Two of those Sony games aren't Sony games and the two that actually are, Sony clearly agreed based on their cutting ties with longtime partner Ready at Dawn and their well-reported rejection of DG2.

I'd like to check out The Order someday soon and see how it holds up since that style of shorter game fits my mood lately, but Forspoken was uniformly panned and RotR is a sign that Team Ninja needs to ease off the gas a bit to focus on quality over quantity.

Tacoboto42d ago

Suicide Squad being at number 2 or even in this list seems like a freebie - its existence alone was disappointing, I don't think many people actually had positive expectations for it near release.

Not having Starfield at all feels like they're ignoring a huge conversation of last year. Even as someone that likes the game, ignoring its reception is head-in-the-sand at best and its restrictions were magnified by its release alongside Baldur's Gate 3. The disappointment many feel about it FARRRRR exceeds any disappointment people have for random third party titles like... Biomutant, and Exoprimal... Same could be said for reception around Forza Motorsport.

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