According to director Ryan Barnard, Skull and Bones won’t be big on story. While Ubisoft has positioned the game as a live service title, it was still hoped there would be an extensive single-player campaign and plenty of narrative-driven content. Instead, however, it seems like the focus will be around “players creating their own stories.”
Skull and Bones won’t be story-driven
Speaking with True Achievements, game director Ryan Barnard clarified that Skull and Bones “is not a narrative-driven game.” In the interview, he made it clear that the focus seems to be on progression more than anything else:
We have narrative pieces — in the game, you’ll meet important NPCs called Kingpins which have their own stories that you’ll learn as you develop rapport with them by taking on contracts with them. There is an underlying story to the game with which we build the entire world lore, but that’s not the main focus.
We want players to create their own stories and be able to choose the type of pirate they want to be. That being said, what drives you through the progression system which we call Infamy, is the fact that you will gain access to blueprints in the game which will give you different types of ships, weapons, and armours, and you’ll need those as you move and explore around the world to be effective against new foes
It’s unfortunate that Ubisoft has leaned so heavily into the GaaS aspects of Skull and Bones. When the game was first revealed, most players seemed excited to see a title where the naval portions of Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag would be expanded upon. There were hopes it would be a grittier spiritual successor to Sid Meier’s Pirates.
Instead, it looks like Skull and Bones will place its emphasis on grinding and microtransactions. Unfortunately, the more we find out about it, the more it seems like it’ll be DOA after its beleaguered development cycle and even some of its devs are doubtful it’ll be a hit.
In other news, you can check out the August 2022 PS4 and PS5 releases, and see why “gamers” are upset about GTA 6 having a female protagonist.