Short version of what went wrong; they marketed 'making a game focused on naval combat based on AC Black Flag', then ended up making a generic MMO-type live service grindfest. Multiple people restarting the project in their own image meant nothing of the original idea was left at the end.

@TheEvilGaidin

3 ай бұрын

and released it 7 years to late....

@kalui96

3 ай бұрын

"then ended up making a generic MMO-type live service grindfest"... par for the Ubisoft course

@Hazemann

3 ай бұрын

Helldivers crushed Skull & Bone also Suicide Squad ❤❤❤

@homelander2243

2 ай бұрын

Sounds like you didn’t play it. It’s a great game and thanks to reviews like this it’s not getting the attention it deserves. I’ll play this over Sea of Thieves any day.

@PittyQuickBob

2 ай бұрын

@@homelander2243it’s a terrible game. Absolute grind fest everytbing requires you to grind materials to actually get anything done if you’re like me and can only play for an hour or 2 a day it really is a terrible experience

Any publishers reading these comments, please grab a pen...... WE DO NOT WANT GAMES AS A SERVICE!! Have a nice day.

@bonquaviusdingle5720

3 ай бұрын

Too bad you're not a shareholder.

@starjadiancloneinvestigato1772

3 ай бұрын

there are enough fools in the world that will happily hand over their money in the next game as a service. sadly X as a service exists as long as there are people that are willing to pay

@fr0mdVst

3 ай бұрын

I don't think they know how to read...

@Zentinel_85

3 ай бұрын

I’m fine with games as a service, as long as that game is badass.

@JoshMarshain

3 ай бұрын

Isn't Helldivers 2, the game everyone's having a blast with right now, games as a service? There are non shitty ways to do this right, most simply do it wrong. Publishers are forcing studios that have absolutely no buisness making a GaaS titles to do it anyways because they fear financially committing to ANYTHING that won't make money forever post launch. A dedicated studio that WANTS to craft a well built games as a service that puts fun first and has a clear focus for what the project should be (and one that allows most paid content to be unlocked by reasonable grinding) can very much so do this right, but the money people in this industry are looking for any chance to cram square pegs into round holes and are learning the hard way what that gets them, failed projects that were flawed from the start that go out to die, wasting years of time a studio could've made something they WANTED to, something that could've been good. They clearly don't respect the time of their studios OR their audience so hopefully now that these duds are hurting their WALLETS they'll start to get the fucking point.

The crazy thing is if you ever played pirates of the Caribbean Online that hand technically had more in it.. also boarding.. in a really really old game.

@reedtheroom9580

3 ай бұрын

I loved that game so much

@JB-1996

3 ай бұрын

Damn you brought it way back, that game was incredible, I remember being a kid and spending like birthday money to get membership 😂 probably a top 5 game for me on nostalgia alone

@duoofdefense8133

3 ай бұрын

truly the best Pirate game. Would love a refreshed version with better graphics

@degeneratecentral6843

3 ай бұрын

there’s never gonna b a game as bomb as potco

@Orinslayer

3 ай бұрын

@@JB-1996 you can still play that game today, its been revived by some dedicated fans.

Played the demo last night….was legit 30 plays queuing up to talk to a NPC which gives you missions of “go get this, bring it back” 10x

@themeanlesbeann

3 ай бұрын

Ubisoft and the stupid NPC queues. I remember standing in those lines when The Division launched. They've learned nothing in 8 years it seems.

@afarrel3195

3 ай бұрын

what’d u expect from ubisoft anyway lol

@byrontownsel7274

3 ай бұрын

I feel a video game industry collapse, just like Atari in the 80s.

@harlequinCT

3 ай бұрын

Weird. You don't have to queue. Played the beta and the full game since launch and haven't seen this

@StevenRegna

3 ай бұрын

@@harlequinCTSounds like he is simply jumping on the "hate train" and is one of the 70% of complainers who havent even played it for real. xD

“AAAA” even Activision wasn’t bold enough to make that claim💀

@siriusblack6527

3 ай бұрын

Well "AAAA" is for the money wasted to make this game. Not the quality 😂

@LarcoVisuals

3 ай бұрын

@@siriusblack6527 bro🤣🤣

@BoondockGore

3 ай бұрын

Elden ring just screams at you... "AAAAAAAAAAAA!"

@TandemSKITTLEZ

3 ай бұрын

🔊

@wv9529

3 ай бұрын

In the CEOS defence it was a sarcasting comment highlight what a complete shitshow the project was.

"Your boat has stamina." 🤦🏻‍♂️

@thejudge1712

3 ай бұрын

Lol

@NoNamesAreAllowed

3 ай бұрын

Wow 🤣🤣🤣🤣

@fantabulousclipsfullhd6887

3 ай бұрын

Do you have the name of person who came up such a pathetic idea (i guess not,how could such pro devs not stick the game design document and plan things accordingly)

@youngmerc7717

3 ай бұрын

Im not one to hate on games I wasn’t planning on buying anyways but that’s crazy lmfaoooo who came up with that 😭

@eireswebb7997

3 ай бұрын

No fucking way😂

Having zero hand to hand combat and not allowing you to roam your boat or explore islands is criminal.

@Banishedsoulsofficial

2 ай бұрын

No its a naval shooter. If you can't comprehend that dynamic you're not a real gamer and need to back to mine craft

@Kero-zc5tc

2 ай бұрын

@@Banishedsoulsofficial no way you just said that, to you then does Minecraft mean you can’t build or fight zombies because it’s ‘mine’ ‘craft’ not ‘build’ ‘fight’?

@lordlopikong6940

Ай бұрын

​@@Banishedsoulsofficialmy your comment the games you've played are garbage. Bet you haven't even touch black flag.

@hariohd

Күн бұрын

⁠​⁠​⁠​⁠@@Banishedsoulsofficialyeah, and that’s the problem. It’s just a naval shooter, when a decade ago they made an almost identical combat system which includes hand to hand combat, let’s you roam your boat and exploration

@dotdotdotdotdash

21 сағат бұрын

@@Banishedsoulsofficial minecraft*

All i wanted was an expansion that let me play Black Flag with my friends. When i found out i cant get off the ship i just re installed Black Flag for another playthrough.

@BaddyHotty

Ай бұрын

I’m actually about to do the same thing, it’s on discount for only 9 bucks! 😹

Ubisoft management takeaway from this will be that people don't want pirate games.

@desertfish74

3 ай бұрын

I want TO pirate games. Oh wait, no I don’t. There’s nothing worth sailing the high seas for 😅

@artisresistance816

3 ай бұрын

I do. I love Sea of thieves, was hoping this would be like that but better ships and more realistic graphics.. instead we got a war ship game

@prointernetuser

3 ай бұрын

​@@artisresistance816the point op was making was that ubisoft would misunderstand why their game flopped hard and some mba consultant is gonna come in and say that it's because the market doesn't want pirate games instead of them having any level of self-awareness.

@weregretohio7728

3 ай бұрын

Ubisoft's takeaway would be that they should hide more abuse and dump more microtransactions on us.

@maszkalman3676

3 ай бұрын

@@prointernetuser Yeah it was the same with unity they fucked up the game it was a barely working bug infested mess and their takeaway from the backlash was peoples don't want an Assassins creed game with asassins in it so they made a shit rpg series....

What went wrong is that they looked at everything that made Black Flag good and said “let’s make that feature a cinematic instead”.

@sethismess

3 ай бұрын

​@@rerelinhowe found the 40 year old toddler

@PeskyCrowKaw

3 ай бұрын

Comment chain?

@pablopablo3834

3 ай бұрын

Or lets not make that feature at all and make the combat even worse and less realistic than an 11 year old game that is also an AC game not just a Pirate game.

@Filippenzen413

3 ай бұрын

Its almost impressive how they wasted all that potential.

@ibrahimzain9472

3 ай бұрын

100%

They needed to stick it out with the Singapore studio because they not only got funds from the gov there But had a tax cut as well So if they don't deliver they are on the hook for the millions invested by the gov, the tax they didn't pay (the tax cut is based on the IP, no IP no tax cut, that includes all the years they were developing and getting a cut) Then they need to worry about investigation into whether or not it was a attempt to defraud the gov of its money & tax cuts It's better to just follow through tbh

@parabalani

3 ай бұрын

It's a very profitable game bro, don't believe youtubers

@kulerthankule2350

2 ай бұрын

@@parabalani I doubt that and the game still sucks dick regardless

Anybody else watch these videos even though they don't play like 90% of the games covered but just find Falcon's voice soothing? Could listen to him reading out a phone book.

@evanmichielsen3675

3 ай бұрын

they do play the games he says it a lot that he’s played a lot of them over the years but yes that’s exactly why i watch him

@brianbru

3 ай бұрын

I dont mean that Falcon doesn't play them I mean I don't play them lol@@evanmichielsen3675

@porterde08

3 ай бұрын

He actually plays them. Albeit probably not all the way through. That would be a monumental task and you literally would have time for nothing else.

@reaperraider999

3 ай бұрын

​@@porterde08 The commenter meant HE doesn't play the games in the video title, not that Gameranx doesn't😂

@watchingyoutube_

3 ай бұрын

OP is obviously not talking about Falcon, they meant they themselves don't play 90% of the games being covered, they just appreciate Falcon's narration.

The first Quadruple A game goes right next to 16x the detail.

@vanlllasky

3 ай бұрын

it's the goat editor himself!

@donatedpizza

3 ай бұрын

@@vanlllasky sup vanillasky

@Crashed131963

3 ай бұрын

This is Quadruple A but "Horizon Forbidden West" is only a Triple A?

@absboodoo

3 ай бұрын

That was the problem. Having one more A is like having an extra pair of chromosome

@futrecacao

3 ай бұрын

@@Crashed131963 two generic games

The most frustrating part is they could have just reused almost all the mechanics from Black Flag with some tweaks and free roam multiplayer and people would have loved it.

@albertwesker2k24

3 ай бұрын

Facts

@alexisonbike3652

3 ай бұрын

They are too inept at making video games to even do that it seems

@adamrakic3253

3 ай бұрын

Basically, black flag with 2024 graphics and instead of good story focus even more on sea aspect and make it multiplayer,would be perfect

@garrett3174

3 ай бұрын

Didn't even need to be multiplayer, just Black Flag with the Assassin's Creed/Abstergo stuff cut with a good story line. Ubisoft basically took and open book exam on an exam they wrote and still failed.

@marcelosampietro6424

3 ай бұрын

But that’s fun to play man… they don’t care for that.

People constantly complain about management, but this is one of those examples of how important competent management is.

Want a gripping RPG saiiling around in a ship? Play "Sunless Sea" - that game will give you fkn nightmares. It gets grim when you run out of food and have to start eating the crew, then you nearly run out of fuel and to save fuel you turn the light off and your crew starts to go insane in the dark - good times. Get the Zubmariner DLC expansion too, it is well worth it.

@belg4r489

3 ай бұрын

True! Though honestly I prefer Sunless Skies which was made later and is a more modern game. Id suggest people to play that, and get sunless sea is they really like it

@Michael-zf1ko

3 ай бұрын

Or just get Sea of Thieves. It doesn't have the horror element, but the mechanics are insanely good and your crew are real people.

@belg4r489

3 ай бұрын

@@Michael-zf1ko True, sea of thieves is a fun multiplayer game, though I'd still prefer sunless skies as it's a mindbendingly puzzling singleplayer games with world building more unique than anything else

@rolytnz

3 ай бұрын

@@belg4r489 I started Sunless Skies - I must get back to it, which I will do, just after I finish this thing in Minecraft...

I've said it once; I've said it a thousand times: all I wanted was a single-player pirate game like Black Flag but without the Assassin stuff.

@Sherif-the-Watcher

3 ай бұрын

I feel you

@GodWorksOut

3 ай бұрын

That’s all anyone wanted and they all voiced their disappointment by not buying the game, right?

@AngelSaintCloud

3 ай бұрын

Which seems so hard to do? I mean they have the license to print money... We need demos, and real beta testers back.

@takeyourheart3030

3 ай бұрын

100% agreed. In replaying Black Flag I’m enjoying the assassin part way more than I did the first time for some reason but it still would have been cool to have a straight up single player pirate game with its own story.

@PeskyCrowKaw

3 ай бұрын

Oh no! They were still working on the game in 2018! Rare falcon L. I understand people don't like the game, but we out here acting like game development is a bad thing.

What went wrong? They didn't make a game with even the depth of Sid Meiers Pirates.

@ArnoldJudasRimmer..

3 ай бұрын

Or the original Monkey Island!

@Custer_The_Hymen_Buster

3 ай бұрын

Literally all they had to do was just do Black Flag but with a focus on exploring and without the Assassins's Creed stuff.

@bateman2112

3 ай бұрын

Sküljagger

@XxxXxx-br7eq

3 ай бұрын

​@@Custer_The_Hymen_BusterI think even under the jolly Roger on switch is more fun than yhis

@archangel6676

3 ай бұрын

Or even meeting the superficial standards of black flag!

I am not necessarily averse to cutscenes in a game, sometimes they make sense functionally, and you deal with it. But the fact that in this game (as I understand from reviews) after you conquer another ship instead of boarding that ship for an on foot battle and looting, there’s a cut-scene instead of letting you board the captured ship in real time. That’s kind of mind-blowing.

@dracdrum

3 ай бұрын

Since it is an MMO, while you are boarding, your ship would be vulnerable to other players and NPCs. You basically play as the ship, the ground areas are for quest hubs and finding treasure. One reviewer likened it to Forza Horizon but with Pirate Ships more explosions.

@Specter_1125

3 ай бұрын

@@dracdrumthere are many ways around that issue. There already isn’t PVP in most areas, for one.

@dracdrum

3 ай бұрын

@@Specter_1125 but there is many times you are fighting more than one ship. Are all the other AI controlled ships supposed to stop reacting to players when any AI ship is boarded? It's still a different game than AC BF. I like them both.

@sentientthundertank2079

3 ай бұрын

@dracdrum it's the same as chorus but not in space

@dillonsparks115

3 ай бұрын

​@dracdrum black flag figured out the ai problem just fine I don't understand why they couldn't just do the same

You are 100% correct. We all would’ve loved black flag 2 game with more story and interesting missions. They literally nailed the boats and gameplay just build on it

You'd think, at some point in that 11 years of development, somebody would have said, "We've been making this game for a while now.... but it's not fun! We should MAKE IT FUN!" lol

@karuzem1988

3 ай бұрын

Maybe most of them did. Most game devs don't really have a say in where the direction of a game is going. It's a job that pays the bills in an industry where layoffs are happening left and right. And the decisions are given by executives.

@Yamyatos

3 ай бұрын

It is fun. Just cetainly not 90 bucks fun, and the AAAA BS is a meme at best. Tho quite frankly, AAA titles usually bore me. Other than the few newcomers / hidden gems of AAA scale, the regurgitated AAA franchises that receive their yearly reskins havent been fun in decades. Large publishers dont plan on making games fun anymore. They plan on making something that worked in the past look better. That's pretty much it imho. AC, Anno, FIFA, BF, CoD, .. it's all being regurgitated. Some publishers like Ubisoft even go so far as to copy mechanics that worked well in other games into pretty much all of their games. Most first/third person Ubisoft games have the same movement nowadays. So quite frankly.. S&B isnt a masterpiece, but it's still far more fun to me than anything they released in over a decade. That i still wouldnt consider it worth more than 30 bucks says more about the average AAA title nowadays than it says about S&B tho lmao. /rant If you are looking for fun games.. indie games are usually still being developed around the idea of being fun first and foremost. Indie devs do try new things too, because game development is actually a pretty competitive scene, and copying an existing game only works for large publishers who own the previous game in the first place.

@TheRealSpicySucc

3 ай бұрын

@@Yamyatosif this game is AAAA then what the hell is rdr2, gow, bg3? Ubisoft is out of their mind.

@ForeverMasterless

3 ай бұрын

Fun seems to be the last thing AAA developers think about these days. I'm still shocked that games like Redfall and Starfield are coming out with shooting that doesn't feel good. Making a shooter feel good to play is like a solved problem at this point, we have that shit down to a science, and yet we still have big budget high profile games where the shooting feels like shit. Why? Cause they didn't prioritize fun. Gotta get the graphics, the story, the voice acting, the marketing, the carrot on a stick progression mechanics, and everything else set in stone before anyone is allowed to ask "hey is this fun to play?"

@chrism635

3 ай бұрын

No need. Let corporate greed run it's course and cash in on the $$$. Sometimes they fail and then they fire the same people so makes sense to just kick in the hours and not interfere or give stupid people good ideas.

The only reason this game never got canceled from delay after delay, director change after director change is because ubisoft took money from Singapore and they HAD to release something and it shows lol

@Shinigami88X1

3 ай бұрын

Like they did with Watch Dogs Legion

@luxinvictus9018

3 ай бұрын

I think everyone knows that by now. But even then, all they had to do was take the black flag pirate stuff and make it into a game. I don't understand how they managed to make it worse. Or they could have done what they did with Mirage and just released it for cheaper, which would have at least made more people try it and resulted in more sales and revenue. How did they actively manage to break what they'd already done and still charge such a high amount that no one would play it? Unless of course, it's for a tax write off, which is probably what it is. Were out here complaining about studio mismanagement while in reality all this is just planned

@AMDACER1

3 ай бұрын

Yap. It was getting sued or releasing a subpar game.

@thelastpersononearth9765

3 ай бұрын

​@@Shinigami88X1Legion was cool tho. U might not like it, but it has some great features

@jamesmiller5331

3 ай бұрын

That and I think the developers think that they're going to be able to trick people into committing to a game where they constantly keep spending money on it. Unfortunately, they have been proven right with games like GTA V or whatever the hell had "battle pass" (I laughed out loud when I first heard that term🤣) but even though people are generally really stupid with their money apparently, you put out a shit product you're not going to get the customer base. And thank God for that because if these guys were succeeding left and right then that's the direction the industry would go At Large. I just wish that people were smarter. I'm a big Fallout fan but as soon as I saw The Fallout 76 press conference or whatever you call it, I knew I was *never* going to play that game. People DO though. I understand people want to play with their friends or whatever but you should only have to buy the game once and that's it. Anything else, show some restraint and say "NO"

A documentary needs to be done on the inner working of Ubis HQ because for the past decade almost every game theyve announced has been delayed or cancelled at least once, with practically the only exception being the recent AC Mirage. The behind the scenes turmoil of that publisher in general is just astonishing how bad they manage everything from top to bottom. As for Skull and Bones, its wild that literally this game was only, and only had to be a sliced off version of what was already perfected in Black Flag. Just take that off, make it its own side game, boom. But nah. They tried to find ways to hamfist GAAS and microtransaction into it SOME kind of way, and thats what led to all the directional changes. They legit only had to do that one thing, and messed it up. But Im not surprised because Ubi had a genuinely great multiplayer with that Brotherhood hunting assassin multiplayer mode and for some reason just let that go instead of continuing it. The oddest part is them calling it AAAA, which put their feet further into the hole, when the game encompassed none of the qualities of a AAA game. It sure didnt have the quality, and as for budget, it probably doesnt crack the top 10 for AAA game budgets nowadays. So what could have possibly made it AAAA. And if the Singaporean government reason is to be believed, then that means they got additional funds and write offs that didnt come out of their own expenses, which means even more that they didnt spend nearly as much as they are claiming.

@connarish

3 ай бұрын

I came to the comments to say a similar thing. For the last decade ubisoft have made flop after flop and every time its the same problem. No soul, no direction, and absolutely shallow and repetitive gameplay. They somehow have the ability to churn out terrible games but not even quickly, they take years and are still sorely lacking. I assume their corporate processes are massively misaligned with the developers/artists and have been for some time.

You know when you go to a fast food joint that you can feel in the burger or whatever the dissatisfaction of the employees in what you're eating. This game is that feeling in videogame form.

@burningcoal5705

2 ай бұрын

I'm sorry but this reminded me of when I was a teenager we had this Fry Cook who hated the boss so much he would make sandwiches bad on purpose purely to spite him. Favorite example being he would not put buns on because the boss got mad when he left his station to restock 😂😂

@PittyQuickBob

2 ай бұрын

Literally you can feel how much they didn’t give a fck by the end, the game is literally a material gathering sim. Just Sail around collecting materials to upgrade whilst being constantly chased by rogues I don’t get how the so called took AC black flags recipe yet completely ruined it. I used to sail for hours just blowing ships up on black flag but this game isn’t fun whatsoever you’re constantly at a disadvantage unless you spend hours grinding materials and blueprints before hand you can’t just comfortably focus on missions

The best thing about Skull & Bones is that it reminded me how much I love AC Black Flag so I started playing it again and it’s still an amazing game. Skull & Bones is worse is almost every way and the ways that it is better (more ship customization mainly) don’t matter that much.

@el8901

3 ай бұрын

i loved black flag has a pirate game not has a mainline game like rouge

@darkvanilla7320

3 ай бұрын

Just re-downloaded it

@Theblackvortex75

3 ай бұрын

Played the beta with my friends they liked it I didn't have fun I played like 5-10 min of blag black and never touched skull and bones again

@kona8832

3 ай бұрын

I tried playing black flag again but skull and bones does play and look better...surprisingly.

@Theblackvortex75

3 ай бұрын

@@kona8832 and that's ok I understand idk something just clicked more for me with black flag and something just didn't click with skill and bones

It's better to play Ac4 and AC rouge than this 4A schlop 🎉

@weetzcro9661

3 ай бұрын

And you can probably get them both for HALF the price

@Krexel

3 ай бұрын

​@@weetzcro9661 You also get every AC game (I think minus the first one) if you're a PS+ Premium member

@albertwesker2k24

3 ай бұрын

Those games look better, have better gameplay mechanics, story, and you can run them on a potato.

@weetzcro9661

3 ай бұрын

@@albertwesker2k24 I'm currently playing PS4 version of Black Flag on PS5. It definitely doesn't look better. Skull and Bones is garbage but there's no need to lie just for likes and clout

@smokesdegrass

3 ай бұрын

*Rogue

With games like this, don’t ask what went wrong, ask what didn’t go wrong, you’ll find it to be much easier to sort out what went wrong then.

I actually feel bad for the devs and whoever they threw in to make this finished only for it to turn out like this. But then again Ubisoft did this to themselves

@lonecourierjoeyv2133

2 ай бұрын

Ubisoft always does these things to themselves, the only games they got going for themselves these days are R6 siege, For honor & Assassins creed

Kind of appropriate that a pirate game gives you a perfect example of the sunken cost fallacy at work.

@kain0067

3 ай бұрын

Twilight Zone: they created it so well that it became a real pirate and stole all the studio's booty.

Skull and bones went to Davy jones locker on release day

@avalonjustin

3 ай бұрын

It's swimming with the fishes

@oblivion85

3 ай бұрын

Skull and Bones, Your debt is settled.

@hpharold23

3 ай бұрын

The only pirate here is Ubisoft, lol, taking all those shinies and not much in return.

"Looking at it makes me want to take a nap." There's your box quote

Quick question, does anyone knows the name of the first background song used in this video?

You can tell the game is shit when news outlets start with "What went wrong?"

@TRC_WA

3 ай бұрын

LOL yep... thanks for saving me the trial download.

@PeskyCrowKaw

3 ай бұрын

Oof way to out oneself like that.

When you have a game like Red Dead Redemption 2 in development for 8 years, and then Skull and Bones in development for 11, it hurts my brain with the comparison of quality. It really goes to show how mismanaged Ubisoft is and how incredibly managed other companies can be. Hopefully, this is a lesson for Ubisoft.

@XPWzrd

3 ай бұрын

Lmao that's cause Ubisoft is horrible

@detach103ff4

3 ай бұрын

Rockstar is notorious for crunch so hardly a metric or comparison..

@MS-kz1ov

3 ай бұрын

​@@cuddles1767 😂 nah

@warhead5225

3 ай бұрын

@@detach103ff4yea but rockstar is also notorious for always releasing a game you play for years after it comes out. Ubisoft gets half a year to a year at best. And if it’s the case of Valhalla, it’s hours of recycled content. Red dead 2, 3 play throughs in, I’m still finding new stuff. Ubisoft is years behind them in that regard. All game studios crunch. But rockstar will crunch and produce something revolutionary. Ubisoft is just “there.” They are bargain bin, not at all at the head of the class, and they know that. Bethesda is the same way. Studios like Remedy and naughty dog run circles around them in terms of giving the gamers the next big thing. Something truly special

@f1jones544

3 ай бұрын

​​​@@detach103ff4"crunch" is part of software development, period. I worked in B2B development for over 20 years and as opposed to game development there's no such thing as no crunch time. Turns out corporate customers who pay hundreds of thousands per year for your services, as opposed to $60 one time, never think your software is "finished," and they usually have the direct phone number. If you don't like crunch, work in a different industry for a lot less money. That's what I do now.

Something I’ve noticed with live service titles is that it’s almost better to start out from early access with generally low expectations, and build it up with a relatively small population of fans and whales. It’s not impossible, but incredibly difficult to get the right kind of gameplay loop, balance, economy, etc. right off the bat. So difficult, that it may not be worth trying for most devs. Especially because, when you do it this way and at this price, expectations are going to be high. Little is better at killing a live service game than the kind of “dead on arrival” media attention Skull and Bones is getting.

@MikadoYuma

3 ай бұрын

In my opinion, live service games have to be free to play, pay to customize. That seems to be the only way they'll survive, and thats difficult to make profitable.

@inuclearpickle8628

3 ай бұрын

⁠@@MikadoYumaeither free to play or a low price point going into it like hell divers

12:24 I worked at ubisoft when it was prototyping the game, and I had designer friends during the creation of the game. Ubisoft received a large grant from the Singapore government to create this game locally with talent from Singapore. The local people were good programmers but had previously worked only with banking. A lot of people had to be brought from other places to try and finish the game. As time went on, It kept costing more and more to the point where it already consumed the grant of money received from the government, and it was put on hold. It was revived a couple of times and eventually launched. Ubisoft, EA, and other big triple-A companies, pay some of the smallest salaries in the industry and rely mostly on people's desire to work on big games. You get more respect from smaller companies.

This game held so many talented devs hostage. Thank goodness it’s out so they can go do something better.

@racismwillsaveusall

3 ай бұрын

People like you need to stop defending people that are literally just as responsible, if not arguably more, for the game being bad. It took a team to make this failure. Youre also the type to defend the fools that shat out New Vegas too arent ya?

@Specter_1125

3 ай бұрын

@@racismwillsaveusallwhat are you going on about?

@dryfox11

3 ай бұрын

@@racismwillsaveusallIf a show comes out with choppy animation, you can tell the animators didn’t have enough time to make it better. If a game comes out with crappy mechanics, you can tell the devs were being thrown around because higher ups can’t make up their mind. (Which they couldn’t, they restarted progress on developing this game how many times?) I have no clue what you’re getting at, or trying to, but the devs can clearly make a beautiful game that tried to abide by every requirement set by their superiors. But if you’re looking to get absolutely roasted, insulting New Vegas is a good way to get there xD Good luck

@Cynsham

3 ай бұрын

@@racismwillsaveusallI don’t understand how you think the devs are responsible for executives and management making terrible decisions on the outcome of the game.

@dryfox11

3 ай бұрын

@@therotten6152 Not really what I was getting at, but you’re right, there are always outliers. The points I made were more suited toward corporate style development, mainly because it was Ubisoft Singapore- Which definitely isn’t a small team lol. That being said, there’s outliers the other way round too. Lethal company was made by one dude and that’s doing better than a AAA company’s best work

Was just listening to jake baldino crap all over this game on the friends per second podcast! timing couldn't be better lol.

@Seismo2077

3 ай бұрын

Interesting. So why wasn't he crapping on the game in his "before you buy"?

They could not make Black Flag 2 because under the agreement with the Singapore government they had to develop a new IP. So it couldn't just be BF2, and it had to be sufficiently different from BF, which is probably where the creative vision started to get muddled.

I was so excited for this game to finally come out and then I played the beta and I was like “Yeah no I’m not gonna pay for this”. My friends and I thought we were going to be able to play as a crew on one ship. I mean that would be soooo much more fun 🤦🏻‍♀️

@KW-de9sc

2 ай бұрын

Its worth it on ubisoft plus if you have it.

Why they couldn't just do Black Flag 2... It would have been so much easier for devs too. And you know execs won't blame themselves. They will say "see, nobody wants a pirate game".

@Tryin2dobetter

3 ай бұрын

They probably blame something dumb.. like social media.

@kristiano.7363

3 ай бұрын

There working on a black flag remaster. There's a hope still

@ghostsamongus3370

3 ай бұрын

​@@kristiano.7363and nobody will buy after this screw-up. They don't deserve our money

13:00 “Normally when a game ships, it’s done” Nice

@corstasclashcam8925

3 ай бұрын

Well that ain't happened for atleast 7 years with seasonal content and dlc packs coming over the course of the year or two after the official release no game comes complete now when it's shipped

I'm pretty sure the voices for singing the shanties I head while watching a stream of these were flat out lifted from AC3.

Ever since the first time we saw this game I've always said the same thing. I've always imagined the Ubisoft board meeting like "ok, so we take Black Flag, remove all the fun, make it multiplayer and sell it." turns out I was right all these years.

They just had to grab Black Flag and get rid of the assassin stuff replacing it with a pirate story. 11 year and they couldn't just make an expansion of an existing game of the same company, granted a different studio but still.

"It exists!" - the most positive thing you can say about this game lol

Damn I remember my first trip to E3 in 2017 and seeing it at the ubisoft booth and thinking the exact same thing and how cool of a premise that was

I would hope that Ubisoft examines and makes creative changes to this game. There is vast room for improvement in this game and I hope ubisoft pays attention to what the playing community is saying about this game.

A friend of mine is part of the Ubisoft Singapore team and joined the project about 3 years ago. Last week, she tells me that Ubisoft actually never said it was gonna be Black Flag without the Assassin parts. I said no way, because they totally did. So i went back to watch the E3 2017 reveal, and she's right. Some of the old comments on the video even have many people commenting that the game's basically World of Warships but pirates. So while there's much about Skull & Bones that I loathe, Ubisoft promising Black Flag without the assassin bit unfortunately can't be one of them because they never did.

If it was a single-player game with a good narrative, I would be all in. Kinda like Black Flag 2!

I'm a huge believer in having a story & gameplay direction/Blueprint & the lead developer does what he's hired to do. Not create his vision. Same w/ Movies.. ~~~Star War Books~ The 19 book series New Jedi Order(NJO) had about 6 writers & they spend months preparing the layout of who writes who & who kills off who & when & how they die etc.. Nobody went rogue. I will always respect how they did that.

I was hoping it would be as good as sid meier's pirates! I used to love that game as a kid

The special creatures and ghost ships are sponges too. I spent 20 minutes and used over 800 cannon balls on a ghost ship just for the game to crash on me with the ghost ship at 10% hp. All that time and effort wasted...not to mention all the supplies i wasted on that ship for nothing...

@rhealgagnon1460

3 ай бұрын

Lol that's nuthing my guy I spend 60 k evry 5h 😂

If they needed a completely new vision for this IP (they couldn’t just do Black Flag 2, they had to add more to it), they could have taken the best parts of Black Flag-the exploration, the ship combat, a great character arc-and added other ideas that changes the setting or characters or the story conflict.

The game is actually pretty polished and has great fidelity. But.... if we have to play a game like a job (ex. piece of 8 farming), then I venture to guess it's not for us. I believe most gamers are tired of every game treating us like an employee to tick off engagement metrics. I think we all just want to have fun with no frills...

They literally needed to copy paste the ship combat from AC BF and put it in full game. Flesh out like 5 things and make the online solid. That's crazy they took this long to fail this hard on something like this.

@inuclearpickle8628

3 ай бұрын

Happens when you have a chicken that is repeatedly decapitated and they stick a new one on. If you have no good leadership and vision a game will always fail

Lahey from the trailer park boys would say something like "they sold us a sinking shit ship randy"

"Sid Miers PIRATES!" was pretty cool.

@NarsilleXStudio

3 ай бұрын

Best pirate game ever

One of the problems with a live service game is that it's designed to be monetarily focused from the start. We as players of a specific genre - whatever that genre be - know we already pay almost to over $100 on one game. Some of us buy more than one of them a month. Some of us can only afford to buy one a month. So we really would rather play the game the way it's intended from start to finish and be done. We'll still buy more games in general if the content is good. So the studios WILL make more money off us at some point. But when you design a game that's intentionally nerfed in power levels just to nickel and dime the player who wants to be successful; and probably can't afford Whale status, it's going to piss most players off. Not to mention turn what should be a fun game into something arguably unfinishable. It tends to rely on players' competitive drive to earn cash, rather than permit any actual sense of fun.

@KW-de9sc

2 ай бұрын

The store is cosmetic shit, some of which you can even buy when the in-game currency instead of premium. You’re not able to buy anything that actually gives you an advantage.

It's very sad to hear how this developed and why it was done that way. I personally like pirate games (maybe the only thing I could imagine playing with friends online), but the price tag is high for me (and probably for my friends) and as it's not my main type of game, I'm not going to grab it yet - I might as well go back to "sid meier's pirates !" game and enjoy it again

Yes! A deep dive on what went wrong, I've been waiting for a video like this instead of the usual simple bashing and making fun of the game. Thanks Falcon!

They could have done so much with this new IP. Created a new story-driven, single-player pirate game (why they went the MMO direction I don’t know). They could have gone the historical route with the Golden Age of Piracy or they could have gone fantastical with sea monsters, mermaids, and pirate curses (or both!) Maybe added some survival elements to it? You get OFF the ship to gather resources, hunt, find treasure or secrets you have to uncover to progress missions. Ship combat? I would have left it the same as Black Flag-taking over ships for crew and loot and being hunted-that was fun. Maybe an element they could have added was changing the flag to appear non-threatening to other ships to ambush them? Or creating a hidden pirate cove. Weather could affect the ships too. There’s just a TON of ideas that they could have ran with if they’d just kept the pirate power fantasy of AC Black Flag but removed the Assassin’s Creed branding. When people think of pirates, the ship is just one piece of the puzzle-people want to fight, explore, find treasure, etc. EDIT: I should have watched the video. They added sea monsters-but without really explaining how the sea monsters existed (or leaning into the idea that there’s huge monsters that exist and you have to build your empire in the chaos). Survival elements? From what I’ve seen it’s mostly a mini game and “ship stamina” rather then forcing the player to interact with the world and the character. To be immersed.

Wow. You explain so nicely and in a simple manner. Keep it up 👍🏼👍🏼

I was hoping Skull & Bones would be Sea of Thieves but with PvE combat and no open pvp. And ofc have the land exploration and combat with swords and pistols and with more human enemies than just skeletons. No problem with some supernatural elements, love the supernatural.

@KW-de9sc

2 ай бұрын

To be fair, it’s not like sea of thieves wasn’t trash when it came out.

I'm the outlier here and I know it. When they said, way way back early in the dev cycle that they were taking out all of the moving around as a person and concentrated on just the ship part I was pumped. The off board parts and sneaking around islands to get upgrades in ACIV got absolutely tedious to me. I just wanted more ship combat. I imagine they'll cut this game off after the first year of content and I'm OK with that. I've got 45+ hours of game time in now. I feel like I got my money's worth. Shame it wasn't more fun for more people, though. I think they could have added more ships, enemies, story content, and even exploration areas(on ship) for a long time.

All they had to do was make Black Flag and Rogue again, but with a different story and more in depth pirate elements. Why can't studios make a good pirate game? The last really good one was Sid Meier's Pirates, back in like, 2004

Wow i never played ACBF but its been sitting on mt shelf from my brother on PS4 for a while now. Not a ubisoft fan but now I wanna play it lol

As someone who bought S&B I find myself wanting more content than whats available now. I like many wanted more ac4 mechanics to come back in this but alas it wasn't ment to be i hope they continue to make improvements to the game and have a nms like redemption arch and this time next year it will be what we all want and expected it to be

@avoidhuncho5331

3 ай бұрын

Naw I think you want your money back just refund it bro

@homelander2243

2 ай бұрын

@@avoidhuncho5331 nope. It’s a fun game, I’ll be playing it for awhile. It’s better than any other pirate game out rn

@Joe-zr7yg

2 ай бұрын

@@homelander2243 Sea of Thieves

@pascalstrijker3985

2 ай бұрын

@@homelander2243 your saying that skull and bones a game where you cant do shit is more fun than sea of thieves your crazy

@homelander2243

2 ай бұрын

@@pascalstrijker3985 where can’t you do shit? Every NPC in the game gives quests at every kind of level and there’s always 2-3 no matter where you are. If you didn’t play it you don’t get a valid opinion

The amount of time that this was in development for what resulted is somehow wildly mind blowing and simultaneously expected. This one always felt like the outcome was obvious, but I think it's indicative of a wider issue in the industry when you look at other AAA titles that spent ages in development and did not live up to that time and resource investment.

IMDA the segment of the Singapore Government likely affiliated with this funding publicly publish the guidelines for the funding scheme. They would likely have to some degree had funding from IMDA which is fully recoverable if they cancel the game which could've left them liable for millions.

I wish someone would do a video like this about 7 Days to Die and everything they’ve pulled with their promises surrounding the console versions, the TTG shut down, and their 10yr and counting development time. All this on top of several successful funding campaigns, merchandise sales, and having one of the top selling early access games.

Apparently UBI borrowed money from the Singapore government but at the promise of a working product....they were basically forced to releasing as it was otherwise they would of not released it atall.

@SobiTheRobot

3 ай бұрын

And they still could have made a better game than this

Black flag but with my friends in a co op campaign is all I wanted tbh. Every fun and cool part of Black Flag is gone in this game.

They should have definitely branched this out into a more black flag pirate game that is more focused on pirates instead of half and half with assasins meaning no parkour and climbing tall towers needed. Just a pure pirate game with walkable cities and interesting story

The second I had seen that the sailing ships in this game had "stamina" when going full speed ahead, I knew there wasn't much hope for this game...

@Runitup2k

2 ай бұрын

They gave a ship a human stamina defect

The main problem with game developers making live service games is all the parent companies expect them to make live service games because they are the most profitable over a longer period of time maybe if we as players stopped buying and supporting live service games they'd actually make games that are complete on release again

@YnysAvallach

3 ай бұрын

Yeppers.

I played the beta and had a blast so i bought the game. but a couple weeks later i am in the end game and it just got very boring and repetitive very quickly. Initially i was having a lot of fun but yesterday i did not even want to turn it on as everything i know all i had to do was just tedious tasks. I was really hoping this would be my new Division. I ended up playing Division 2 and/or CoD more over the past week than this game and I have almost 3000 hours into Division 2. Some games just hit right for me.

Keep up the great work Falcon! I absolutely love your honest takes that are not dripping with toxicity.

Ive been wanting to buy a original xbox and buy Bloodwake. When this came out ive been playing it alot and enjoy it. Its something different and im sure theyll add more... hopefully

I had not seen any game footage until now. I definitely see what people are saying about how it looks like a mobile game.

I’m glad I played the free trial game and saved like $70. Like it got me in a pirate mood again and watched the first three Pirates of the Caribbean movies a few days ago, but I feel bad I did not have the same fun like with not just AC: Black Flags, but Sea of Thieves and Sid Meier's Pirates. I wanted a fun pirate game but felt like I was playing ship simulator. Heck, I had a more pirate-y adventure when I modded Skyrim a few years back with some pirates mods! I was hype for the customization and traveling on a ship, but once I got to try it out, I was disappointed. Didn’t get the customization I hoped for and the ship battle got tedious, especially with pirate hunters keep appearing and destroying me so frequently when I was a low level. Read it could be a potential bug, but it was so annoying, I gave up.

They could have reduced the price a little for the full game. In my country it is almost sold for the price for $95! And that is just the standard version of the game. The price tag dosen't match up to what we are getting in the game + it has microtransactions too for almost equal price of the full game. I understand that Ubisoft wanted to take it outand throw it out from the shelf and just be done with it, bit in my opinion, and I have tried the trial version fully, it should have been scraped. Thats my opinion

they need to look at ac black flag and pirates of the carribean online, (if you know about it you know) and make it more immersive, like actually boarding ships, hand to hand combat, exploring islands, and just do events were we can play with friends/people

honestly I wish they just did make AC: Black Flag 2. I want to know how we got from the pirate/Assassin to his son Haythem the Templar in London to the Native American guy we meet in AC: 3. The original games just don't tie up a lot of loose ends. I think an MMO taking placing in the AC: Black Flag universe would be interesting and would be a great expansion on the core concepts.

I got some games to play and when Im done with those I hope this game will go on sale

Lets be honest here. I enjoyed Black Flag. The sea shanties, the sea combat, storms and whatnot. But by the end of the game I was kinda done. Maybe other people were different but i've yet to boot the game up since i beat it. I think if this game came out quickly afterwards it would have been ok. But after this long? And its somehow worse? oof.

still want to get it, but maybe in a few months once they've put out more updates

The irony about Skull and Bones is that it shares a similar beginning in terms of development like Assassin's Creed. Both were meant to be spin-offs become becoming original titles. Except both would have very different outcomes.

Steam world: heist is a must if you are a fan of turn based game. The only downside isnthe sadness that appears when you realise that you have done all available content. Hoping for more dlc is like waiting for that ex that left you all those years ago.

Pretty much status quo for big studios now. It is amazing that they managed to make the ship combat worse though.

I think the only way you can have an effective live service game is the one inherent part being having a constantly evolving story and without that it just won’t happen

Like many I was both very disappointed and very not surprised by how this game came out. I really hope this will be a case study for future developers. I hope the execs didn't get a big bonus for hitting the final ship date and moved to another company to do more damage, as is the American way. Mostly I hope this game can be salvaged by modders or updates... do you think that is possible?

Yea i played the demo .. the Ship battles where more like a shooter rather than a pirate ship battle

Their mistake was stopping at only a Quadruple A game. If they had just pushed a bit further to Quintuple A, then the game would have been great!

“No I don’t want you to try to make a good live service game, I just want you to make a game” SAY IT LOUDER FOR THE DEVELOPERS IN THE BACK

Yeah, most developers jumped ship. Makes a whole lotta sense!

These devs aren't the ones who made Black Flag. These devs aren't gamers. They practically don't care. Or at least not enough to properly put together a good game; with which all the pieces they need they already have.

I played the 2nd closed beta test and I laughed so hard when towards the end of the 6 hour time limit a pop up popped up saying "your time is almost up, preorder the premium edition now to keep everything you have earned during the beta" like.....nah. I booked the day off work for that and I had to play AC: black flag once my time ran out just so the day didn't feel wasted!

I like how the cannons are able to fire balls at an almost 90 degree angle. And torpedos? Ship stamina? What a piece of crap, what were they thinking?!

"live service open world games cant just be made and print money... it takes a dev with understanding and directions how to envelop it into a working reality" best comment