Skull and Bones review: it shivered me timbers

Published On: February 23, 2024

I love a good pirate game. I even have a list of my favourites. At the third spot is Tales of Monkey Island. A gem of a game that is the face of old-school point-and-click adventure titles. Then you have the 2004 remaster of Sid Meier’s Pirates! A fantastic game that is the epitome of what a pirate game should be. Finally, there is Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag. It isn’t exactly a pirate game per se, but it that bit extremely well. The naval combat was great and the ship-to-ship melee combat made you feel like a true swashbuckling pirate.

So when Ubisoft decided to expand upon the pirate aspect of Black Flag and make a dedicated pirate game, I was all in. Skull and Bones was first teased in 2017, and it has taken a while to get to us. So let’s see if it is a pirate’s life for me.

Before that, let me get this out of the way. Skull and Bones is a live service game. That does not do it any favours. This was the same case with Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League (review). So do not come in expecting a deep single-player experience here.

Table of Contents

Story

The game starts with you dropped into the middle of a sea battle where the basics of naval combat are explained to you. However, you are scripted to lose this battle. Soon, your player characters find themselves shipwrecked and this is where you get to create your character. Once that is done, you are rescued why by NPCs, one of whom will become your crew’s first mate. You better get used to hearing her voice because you cannot change her and she does not stop talking.

Anyway, the first thing you have to do is meet up with the pirate Chief Captain who starts by berating your work and then immediately gives you more work. You complete the task, and they are suddenly full of praise. Soon enough, you are tasked with heading to the pirate haven of Sainte-Anne to meet up with Pirate Kingpin, John Scurlock. Once there, you can continue the main campaign via missions given by Scurlock, or take on any other side quest.

To be honest, I genuinely cannot remember the story beyond this point. Something about regaining power? There is so much exposition and all missions are so repetitive that it is all smooshed up in my head. After a while, you just stop caring.

Graphics

Skull and Bones looks pretty good. It may not be the best-looking game I have seen, but it looks like a modern-generation game. The details on the ships and the characters are nice and the water looks good, especially during storms. It is quite cool to see a lightning bolt hit a few hundred meters from your ship.

However, not everything is great. The texture of the land as well as trees isn’t that great. However, I am not going to judge it too much as you can’t leave your ship. (Will talk about this in a bit)

Gameplay

There are good things and bad things about the gameplay experience that Skull and Bones have to offer and let’s start with the good.

The naval combat is excellent. Think of it as a simplified version of the combat system employed in Black Flag. Players can choose the different guns on their ship and where they want them placed. Players get a sort of ‘first-person’ view with a targeting reticle when shooting. Players can either completely sink ships and then loot the remains or board the ship once the health is sufficiently low for some bonus loot. (we will talk about that in a bit)

The sailing aspect of this game is well done. Manipulating your sails to get the best out of the wind is great. It does feel that you are in control of a big cumbersome ship that you have to wrestle into submission and that is a good thing. Further, the combat can get intense at times, especially when the storms roll in and you’ll have to time your shots between the waves. It’s frantic and fun and reminds us a lot of the best bits of Black Flag.

When not in the open sea, players have a hub city that they can visit. There they can accept missions, purchase items or craft new ships or weapons. There are also outposts dotted on the map that are smaller versions of the hub city. These outposts feature a trader and a Pirate Bonfire that bestows a temporary buff. More importantly, it can be used as a fast travel point. Before they leave, players can edit the name of their ship, repair it, or customise multiple different facets of it.

As you might have noticed in the above paragraph. The game features a crafting component. To make improvements or get a new ship, you will need to gather the required materials. Players can gather these by either looting ships or by gathering resources at certain points. Since you cannot leave the ship, you will have to sort of ram your ship to the resource and then start a mini-game to collect it.

Well, I guess it’s time to talk about the elephant in the room. Let’s bring up the bad.

Except for the main hubs or the outposts, you don’t get to leave the ship. I mean, not at all. Do you want to interact with a settlement to buy resources? You do it from the ship. Want to mine resources? Do it from the ship. Chop wood? From the ship! There is no hand-to-hand combat at all. So you do not even get to board enemy vessels. You just damage them enough to launch grapple hooks and then you just get a cut scene. That’s pretty much it. Your player character can’t even swim. I dunno about you guys. But when I play a game about pirates and ships. I expect a bit of swashbuckling action. Even a relatively ancient game like Sid Meier’s Pirates lets you engage in a bit of fencing action, albeit a basic one.

Another bit that annoys me is the fact that the game only has 10 ships that a player can craft. No Dutch Fluyts, Man-of-Wars, Galleons, etc. I know Ubisoft has deliberately done this and will slowly drip-feed the other ships over time. Not cool.

Then there is the gameplay loop. All you do is pick up a mission – go there – destroy ships/towns – and then come back to get loot. This loot is then used to build bigger and better warships to do the same thing. I’m not saying this can’t be fun. But it will start wearing you down after a while. The missions are usually some variation of the fetch quest and when combined with the pointless story, you don’t feel any compulsion. I found it best to find your fun such as aiming to get the best ship or trying to get a lot of money.

Now for the ugly bits. I had the game crash on me twice, which while annoying, wasn’t that much of a problem. A major issue I came across when playing Skull and Bones. The first was a few missing into it wherein the game stopped loading my ship when I tried to leave port. Since I could not do anything else I was kinda stuck unable to do anything else. Do note that the game does not let you create a new profile or reset their profile. So if things didn’t change, I was going to be stuck. Thankfully, the issue fixed itself after a few hours.

Verdict

Skull and Bones could and should have been a great pirate game. But it is not. You get some pretty good graphics and some excellent naval combat as well. Ship customisation is also pretty good and as this is a Live Service game, the options will grow.

However, I cannot help but feel that the game is one giant missed opportunity. The addition of more third-person gameplay would add more mission variety. After all, there is only so much one can do on a ship. Speaking of which, I would love to see more ships in the game.

As it stands right now, Skull and Bones can only be enjoyed by die-hard fans of ship combat. The game has a long way to go before it can be considered a great pirate game.

Those interested in multiplayer-based pirate action can consider Rare’s Sea of Thieves to get their fix. Those who are looking for a comprehensive pirate experience, but are OK with some dated graphics and gameplay might want to check out 2004’s Sid Meier’s Pirates! However, if you prefer more modern graphics and gameplay, then you might be better off with Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag.