Real talk: How does Ubisoft manage to screw up something as straight forward as Skull & Bones? They LITERALLY have the blue prints to create a Black Flag successor yet they threw that out the window to pursue the Live Service zeitgeist. To say it’s wasted potential is putting it mildly.
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Because ubisoft, theyre the quient essential c- game devs. They do just enough to not fail miserably.
10 years development, there must have been soo many things going wrong.
I read somewhere, they got money from Singapore for opening a Studio there and than couldn’t stop due to contracts.
because its the first AAAA game ever according to them, and apparently that means you now pay even more for even less
I think the game was kinda doomed from the start.
They were taking one single aspect of Black Flag (or one good idea/concept in general) and trying to stretch it out and shape it into a whole game, something was bound to go wrong either way.
IMO it was they got a state based financial boost for it, shelved caring about it, ignored it to pump out their easily to make known IPs, had no direction or thought then when the gov came knocking they hurried and actually started working on it but nobody had any clue or plan. Executive incompetence to the core.
its ubisoft
From what i remember it’s basically because a bunch of political shenanigans happened between the studio, ubisoft and the Singapore government
The following is a dramatic reenactment of how I figure development went:
1. Project lead 1: “alright, we wanna surprise fans. We don’t just want to give them Black Flag 2, but an entirely new experience. Let’s get some ideas down for how we could really expand the social side of the game – MP is the future and it’s already 2012!”
2. Project lead 1 leaves after 18 months on the job for a new opportunity.
3. Project lead 2: “that last person was terrible. I have a narrative background, so let’s get the framework set up for an intense 40 hour campaign. We don’t need to build it all yet, let’s just get some ideas down.
4. Project lead 2 leaves after 18 months for a new opportunity.
….
Repeat over and over
…
171. Project lead X: “Yves Guillemot has taken my husband and children, and locked them in a dungeon in Marseille. I won’t get them back until this game is done. Holy fuck this is a mess.
Okay, stop mo-capping new cutscenes we are cutting that. Why are you doing art for a dragon having sex with a boat? Cut that. What factions do you have? Oh god cut those other 3. You’re working on what? Server side waves that respond to dynamic weather? Cut that too….
You’re a pirate
That doesn’t use a sword
Or a pistol
Or capture ships
And sail in a ship that can shoot a “broadside” at almost any angle
Ya know, like pirates
Yup. Itll be free to play soon.
I find it more funny how they have the audacity to also call it the first AAAA game.
Their bullshit never ceases to amaze me. Zero credibility. No self-awareness.
Screw up? It’s a quadruple A game! They said so themselves.
Just quit yer bitchin and buy some cosmetics from the quadruple A shop like a good little consumer.
From what I saw, that was a bit part of the problem actually. In a game where its all about ship-battle…you can’t even pierce their sails. Not really immersive. More like arcade.
It was a grift. The Singaporean government subsidized the game’s development and Ubisoft rode that cash cow for as long as they could then poo’d out this product at the last minute because they were contractually obligated to.
How? Because all triple a companies are purely beholden to investor whims, and those investors do not care about or understand video games. Hell, even their executives often barely understand the products they sell or what actually makes them appealing to people outside of literal manipulation tactics.
We all have no clue..
But I haven’t touched an ubishit product in years.
They could have just slightly modified the black flag system in order to shoe horn in their fucking mtx to top it off. The only thing that would really need an overhaul would have been the melee combat since it’s not AC. Literally everything else could have just been copied and pasted with a few minor changes and expansions.
I was looking forward to this game for a few years. It was only shortly before release I started reading about issues with the game. I decided it was best to hold off on pre ordering and see what the initial vibe was from others. I def, feel like I dodged a bullet, reading about how broken the game is within like 72 hours of release.
lol man remember when Sea of Thieves first came out and all the shit that game got? And on launch, you can literally do EVERYTHING this game is missing. Swords, guns, swim, leave your ship freely, that’s what people actually want it was just missing some juicy content to make it feel worth it.
This game… what? It’s just the boat fighting part in Sea of Thieves basically from what I’ve seen. Nothing else.
All they had to do was just pull the good aspects from black flag and it would be a solid base. Instead we got one of the most arcadey garbage games I have ever played.
It’s actually a really good game, I’m enjoying it alot
To be honest: I played it for several hours in the open beta and it’s okay if you treat it like a game like European (or American) Truck Simulator. Pick up some cargo, bring it to it’s destination and upgrade your vehicle. That’s it, except you can get cargo by fighting others :p Don’t compare it with Black Flag because than you get really disappointed. But if you like ships and need a game to relax a bit, than it’s okay. ( If it was sold for 20-30€ and not the 60€ they’re asking now).
all they had to do was copy black flag, get rid of the assassin stuff add more pirate stuff and make it multiplayer.
I’m genuinely curious, what does it being live service have to do with it sucking? Live service literally just means if you buy it now they will continue to come out with new content. even if they didn’t go for a live service model this game would still suck ass, and I don’t understand the hate for live service games when they usually just mean future fixes for things that suck and new content to keep the playerbase coming back… I feel like 95% of multiplayer games are technically live service and if they weren’t people would play for 2 months and then never touch it again, and people who bought it later than that would have no one to play with on dead servers….
Sea of Thieves and Pirates!
Anything that has micro transactions ruins the gameplay experience for me
Bring back puzzle pirates instead of this turd