I don't think this will be any direct competition to Sea of Thieves, any more than any other new game people might want to play is competition (i.e. Eleden Ring: any competition for time is competition).

They are just very different games. One has heavy progression and you basically play as a ship, not a person. Multiplayer is not multiple players being crew on one boat, but instead multiple boats in a fleet. There isn't so much adventure from what I can tell. It's all naval combat with some ocean hunting and resource gathering.

To me honestly it's not something that will take my attention away from Sea of Thieves. When the new Dragon Age or Mass Effect game comes out, that'll be a different story. Until something like that pops up, you'll find me on the Sea of Thieves.

I think skull and bones has potential.

I used to play a game called Voyage Century a long time ago, and fell in love with how sprawling the world and ship designs felt, how many AI ships there were on trade routes, and just how much planning it took to optimize your profits & prepare your ship for a long journey. It was a great game for building your ship the way you wanted, and learning what situations you were great in, and which you weren't. Playing with friends meant I might have them escort me as a fighting ship, so that I could deliver a huge amount of cargo as a merchant type ship, then split the profits. It was great fun.

This game trailer captures some of that feeling, especially in regards to material gathering, and buying supplies / ship upgrades. So long as the ships feel distinct enough from one another, and each fill a niche, the game will do fine. Well, that, and it needs end game content that encourages experienced players to keep playing. This is where I don't yet see any evidence Skull & Bones has thought this through enough. I think they hope that earning / buying cosmetics will be enough using the money from world events, but the game isn't as social or personable as Sea of Thieves, which means the gameplay and combat really needs to be top notch to keep people interested.

The trailer showed some really nice systems that I wish sea of thieves had, like the ability to add a crew you spot through your spyglass to a party, and ship customization that affects things like speed, turning, hull durability, etc.

I certainly think there is an audience for this game, and that it can coexist with Sea of Thieves, but to convince me to play it, I need to see the economy of the game in action, and really see the in's and out's of how each ship can be built and customized to fill it's own niche in combat and in events. If each ship is perfectly viable in all situations, there is no point to make this game multiplayer, and that is what concerns me the most. It has survival elements that are at risk of just being tossed aside once you hit a certain tier, and which only exist to pad the playtime until you reach endgame. I'm hoping that the game is more of a fleet management game in which money and resources stays really tight, and you might switch off for different scenarios, run different ships with different groups, and even try to take on events on weaker ships because you will net more profit only having to pay for repairs and upkeep on a smaller vessel. THAT is what I want out of this game that would differentiate it from Sea of Thieves. I want to feel like a starving pirate, looking for the next big score so I can afford a long journey or sustained fighting in the future.

Sea of Thieves largely avoids these concerns by offering enough variety and making ship management much more immersive. All ships are viable in PvE because you reset each session, and you the player are in full control and there are no stats / damage checks. PvP is also a bit different in Sea of Thieves, requiring a broad range of skillsets that keep encounters unpredictable, and offering lots of different tools to damage enemy ships (kegs, island cannons, fire, or just boarding and crashing their ship, etc). Sometimes this works beautifully, other times it can feel a bit one sided, but it is more exciting than the combat Skull & Bones showed, even though I am envious of the number of AI vessels they had sailing around at one time which looks like great fun.

The ships in Skull & bones appear to have health bars and such, meaning they really need to ensure the game is strategic at all levels to make the game feel alive and not just a point and click naval combat simulator. This was fine in old games like Voyage Century which couldn't handle much else, but today, I think gamers expect more innovation and polish. Skull & Bones has a surprisingly nostalgic feel, incorporating some MMO type elements that could really strike a cord, or cause it to fail miserably. The question is whether the game is too constrained and not varied enough to really succeed as an open sea adventure. Is the game just a collection of missions that you can run with friends, or is there a living breathing world that rewards you for creativity and strategic play?

Nobody can say just yet, but I think there is promise. The systems are all there, but do they harmonize?

If it makes it to gamepass I might play it.

@tre-oni

I agree, after watching the gameplay reveal, there was nothing I saw that you can't already do in Sea of Thieves. I actually was surprised how many things you couldn't do yourself in the game. (I think it's cool how you have a crew and you can order them around and everything, but like what you said, it's very restrictive. I'd rather do these things myself personally.)

I have this feeling Skull and Bones isn't going to be able to escape the comparisons to Assassin's Creed: Black Flag. (which, if I had to guess, is going to be damaging to longevity of the game.)

I wasn't really intrigued by what they revealed, but especially after the Ubisoft news involving Assassin's Creed: Liberation, I am in no way interested in buying Skull and Bones at this point.

I wouldnt really say skull and bones is much of a competition, its functionally 2 totally different games with the only similarity being that your a pirate, trying to compare the 2 and claiming competition is like saying that forza is the competition of mario cart because they both are racing games, or comparing cod to splatoon cause they are team based shooters. Basically, its 2 games that can both be great in their own ways without stepping on each others toes considering they have totally different experiences to offer! im excited to see what skull and bones brings, either way im going to continue to play this even if i enjoy skull and bones when its out!

Really disappointed on skull and bones and how the game is coming out. Imagine AC: black flag, 1. with the assassin portion of the game cut out,2. and the pirate theme/portion trimmed. What are you left with? Skull and bones version of black flag, a skeleton of a another game sold at $70, stamped with the "new" label, slightly better graphics, and using the excuse "But it has multiplayer".

The gameplay mechanics are similar to black flag, like exact copy and paste. They've added more of the same with customization, more cannon types, more options, hull plates, etc..., Which is appreciated but doesn't really make it stand out as a stand alone unique game, can't even be seen as a dlc to black flag, so that leaves it looking like a demo of it that has more or expanded options for already in game content.

No assassin portion which is good, it's not supposed to be themed like that, and the pirate gameplay is what is desired here. But the issue here is that even though the assassin theme was cut from the game, nothing was substituted in to replace it. It has no actual land gameplay, save the limited and restricted treasure hunting Easter egg hunts and the outposts buying/ selling? waiting rooms. They haven't shown the ability to walk on the ship as of yet, so it may or may not be a thing. This means that there's no sword or gun play of any type.

Due to no sword/ gun play and overall land game play, the game ends up chunking off or trimming some of what's left from the pirate theme. Some things that get cut off from the pirate theme are actual boarding mechanics (which are replaced by/ or limited to a cutscene) and offensive town plundering and pillaging. furthermore, you have limitations set on other things such as resource collecting and possibly treasure hunting.

To summarize, my disappointment stemmed from the way the game is being marketed, and from the lack of met expectations.

I expected that after the game was first criticized, and after it went through different iterations over the course of roughly 12 years, that the devs would settle the boarding mechanic on something that wasn't a cutscene. To me, deciding to settle any game mechanic as a cutscene is a result of lack of vision, lazy development, or some form misdirection. The cutscene shown, isn't even that unique, epic, cinematic, nor graphically pleasing, which leaves me doubting if the devs decided on the implementation to cut costs.

As for the town' city pillaging' plundering mechanic, it plays a lot like a GTA bank heist mission but one in which you are always the driver. A small cutscene plays out where your crew enters a tunnel, and then you play as the driver waiting outside the bank and defending your crew... but all while your crew has an epic bank heist adventure, blowing up walls, hacking and shutting down security cameras and doors, getting to the bank, gun fire breaks out, safe breaking, etc..., but you can't see nor play through any of that, ever. That's how it goes down in skull and bones, basically GTA bank heist: The driver edition...

and then there's the horrid resource collection which feels like an incomplete mechanic. If a tree is nearby, you collect wood by being in proximity, press a button (Or enter into a button-mash mini game of a kind), the tree shakes a bit, and the wood is collected...what? What just happened? Do I need to use my imagination as to what just transpired here without the captain or the crew getting off the ship? This is the only portion of the game that could have actually taken advantage of a cutscene (With he mini-game)... and it doesn't have it.

To me, these 3 things, boarding, pillaging, and resource collecting are the bare minimum that needs to be reworked in order for the game even starting to be acceptable to invest in (Either through purchasing or playing).

On a side note: I'd leave cutscenes to story mechanics and not gameplay mechanics. From experience, any time the gameplay or combat throws the player into a cutscene for a specific move, the overall flow and control of the combat for the player is reduced, and ultimately ends up reducing overall personal satisfaction and immersion.

@hadtodoit oh come on, its a Ubisort game. I bet in a month players are gonna have to pay real money to buy better canons and staff. Plus, according to Falcore, the map size is like 10 times bigger than SoT, so the sailing must be rly boring. Im kinda sceptical with this whole thing tbh

@roborob-r66y said in Skull ☠️ & Bones 🦴:

PvE servers baby!!!! RIP sea of thieves. They are actually scared and rightfully so. After how bad this update is due to them focusing more on season8 which will release in november it has to be their response to the release of skull and bones so that update is probably getting a lot more focus than this garbage copy paste commendation fiasco

After seeing the new gameplay video of Skulls and Bones I don’t think they should be worried at all. Not even close to be the same game other than for the pirate thematic. Boarding cutscene, no walking on your boat, only one player per boat, no land combat or exploration, dry humping ressources with your boat, boats that turn like seadoo… Your frustration with Rare is understandable but wishing them to fail is not really constructive either.