“Production on Skull & Bones has been in full swing with a new vision,” Ubisoft Creative Director Elizabeth Pellen wrote in a blog post (opens in new tab). “Our teams at Ubisoft Singapore are fully committed to launching the game, as well as supporting it for many years to come.”

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Pellen further explains why Ubisoft felt it had to reboot and postpone the launch of the game, citing a need for more development time. “We dreamt something bigger for Skull & Bones, and these ambitions naturally came with bigger challenges. These difficulties resulted in necessary delays for our game,” she wrote. As a result, “many new talents” joined the development team. Pellen describes how the studio needed to consider how to “modernize the classic pirate fantasy … to ensure a more immersive and visceral experience” and “create cool and memorable moments in-game.” Pellen promises a “comeback” of Skull & Bones next year and that the team’s “confidence in each other’s talents is what motivates us to push Skull & Bones towards the finish line and beyond.” Video Games Chronicle revealed a couple of months ago that Skull & Bones would become a “live” game because the title had been unable to set itself apart from Ubisoft’s existing catalog of games. This is unsurprising; the game had previously received criticism for looking like a boiled down Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag. Skull & Bones was initially announced in a cinematic trailer in 2017 and received a gameplay presentation a year later. We haven’t heard much else about the game since then, making it difficult to imagine what it’ll look like in its rebooted form.