The last 12 months or so have proved that despite mega budgets and the best intentions, it’s tough out there for live service games. Suicide Squad Kill The Justice League. Concord. Most recently, Ubisoft’s XDefiant. These are just some of the titles that have met (or will soon meet) their ends. Another name that I thought would be destined for the videogame graveyard would be fellow Ubi project Skull and Bones. The co-op game appears to have been struggling, but according to a new report, support for the game may continue well into the future, with a second year of content allegedly planned.
For the record, Skull and Bones is not a terrible game – in fact, a couple of months back we gave it a bit of a vouch and said it was worth a try while heavily discounted in a Steam sale. However, it’s not a show-stopping, must-play game either. Skull and Bones doesn’t exactly do much that its main rival, the well-established Sea of Thieves, already does. As a result, the co-op game has felt like another doomed live service endeavor. While Ubisoft hasn’t shared player count stats across all platforms, we do know that on Steam, it is really struggling, with daily concurrent peak player counts struggling to get past 300 players most of the time.
However, don’t write it off just yet. New claims from Insider Gaming’s Tom Henderson, who has a strong track record with his reporting on Ubisoft’s games, suggest that a plan for a second year of content and support is in place – a luxury that XDefiant sadly isn’t being afforded.
Henderson’s sources say that Year 2 Season 1 of Skull and Bones is set to start early next year – I suspect shortly after its first birthday on February 16. This will reportedly bring “new PvP game modes, places of interest (POIs), new world tiers, and more” to the game.
Ubisoft is apparently also interested in more crossover events, and while Henderson isn’t fully confident that it’ll come to fruition, an event with Ubisoft’s celebrated pirate adventure Assassin’s Creed Black Flag could be in the works. This may coincide with the rumored remake of Black Flag.
Despite Skull and Bones’ pretty dismal Steam player count, his sources also says that actual numbers across all platforms “‘might surprise people,’” hence Ubisoft’s willingness to support the game it once infamously called a “quadruple-A” product.
Now, it’s time for me to bring out the salt shaker, because this needs a pinch. XDefiant’s executive producer Mark Rubin was saying just a couple of months ago that plans were also being made for his game’s second year of content. However, earlier this month, Ubisoft announced that it was scrapping support for XDefiant and that it would fully shut down next June. Today’s Season 3 update to the game actually contains extra maps, weapons, and playable operators that were made and ready to release in future seasons – some as far off as Season 8. So, all of that’s to say that plans can be swiftly changed for any Ubisoft title at the moment.
If Skull and Bones isn’t for you, here are some other great multiplayer games and our recommendations of the best RPGs on PC right now.
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