Cover Reveal – Skull And Bones

Skull and Bones first appeared in 2017. As a major fan of Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, I was thrilled to see Ubisoft dive back into piracy, this time with a new IP. Skull and Bones at that time was an arena combat game in 5v5 where the player played only as their ship. It wasn’t exactly the Black Flag follow-up many, including myself, had anticipated, but with Ubisoft Singapore, the studio behind the Assassin’s Creed franchise’s excellent naval combat, at the helm, I wanted to see more. 

Skull and Bones was revealed in 2018 after another glance. Ubisoft has remained silent about the title for many years. The publisher then announced this month that Skull and Bones would be being re-released on July 7. This new reveal brought new gameplay details and a new perspective on how Skull and Bones had changed from the arena 5v5 game it was years ago. It’s now a large live-service online game that takes place in an open-world Indian Ocean. Your goal is to become a pirate outcast and a kingpin. While we learned a lot that day, I still had questions, and for this cover story, I was able to ask them all (and then some) to key developers such as game director Ryan Barnard and creative director Elisabeth Pellen. 

Barnard, Pellen and the other Ubisoft Singapore team members were available to talk virtually about this issue’s covers story. They were very open to answering my questions about the game’s direction, music, progress mechanics and endgame of Skull and Bones. How it will continue to be loved by fans for many more years and how it differs from pirate mainstays such as Rare’s Sea of Thieves. This cover will tell you all about it, as well as the Infamy system Skull and Bones uses, the game’s PvE and PvP server handling, and the importance multiplayer. I was already excited about Skull and Bones before this – if you know me at all, you know that if pirates are involved, I’m on board (excuse the pun) – but talking to the team has me even more stoked for November 8. 

There’s more to Issue #348 than you might expect. We’ve got a robust look at 60 of the most exciting game reveals of the summer, a deep dive into the new revival of Saints Row, a feature-length look at Ubisoft’s Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope, reviews for games you don’t want to miss, and an E3-focused retrospective about its place in gaming. All that and much more can be found in the upcoming issue. Game Informer. 

The print subscribers will receive their issues in the next days/weeks. Digital editions of this issue will be available for PC/Mac, iOS and Google Play later today. Click here to subscribe to the print or digital version.