Skull and Bones could have been great, but it's unfortunately a dud. I'm sure no one working on this title wanted to create a bad game, but the final product has all the hints of homework that was submitted for the sake of meeting a grading requirement.
There’s the problem. They saw how much people liked the pirate stuff in Assassin’s Creed 4 and they thought they could just throw a bunch of money ar making another one. I’m guessing no one really had a creative vision for the project beyond “make big pirate game.” It looks like Ubisoft got exactly what they paid for.
I look forward to this sort of thing playing out a lot as generative AI becomes more common. “I don’t get it, we fed all the right data points into the computer, but no one likes the result! Why aren’t people enjoying the things that our models show are statistically identical to the other things they like?”
I’m guessing no one really had a creative vision for the project beyond “make big pirate game.” It looks like Ubisoft got exactly what they paid for.
They basically changed the core concept at least twice during development, first rejecting every prototype for two years straight then telling the studio to make "Siege, with boats" and then going "Sea of Thieves!" when that came out.
And the whole time they were shitting on the local devs, rotating out the management, and basically just using the ongoing project as a way to grift subsidies from the Singapore government and have some place for their execs to vacation while pretending to work.
On the flip side of that, I could easily see indie creators feeding a mishmash of ideas into chat-gpt and stable diffusion and coming out with a weird-ass, wonderful game like Kenshi. It's the corporate "polish" that smooths off all the weird edges that will make these insufferable.
Just give me a pirate game where like 30 dudes try to load, aim, and fire 20 guns while trying to repel borders, heal/replace the injured, adjust sails, etc while cannon balls smashing though the ship.
If you want to sail around by yourself, navigating, adjusting sails, managing cargo, food, drink, and sleep, Sailwind is a cool indie game where you do that. There's basically no NPC's and absolutely no combat, but it's got the golden age of sail mechanics stuff down.
Exactly. Nothing is going to change about the system. Indie developers will do all the innovation while big studios continue to let endless market research and monetization drive all of their decisionmaking.
They saw how much people liked the pirate stuff in Assassin’s Creed 4 and they thought they could just throw a bunch of money ar making another one.
'Okay, mes amis... now let's rip out the ship boarding, the melee combat, fleet management, island traversal, towns, most of the resource stuff and economy, and the single-player aspect! C'est magnifique!'
There’s the problem. They saw how much people liked the pirate stuff in Assassin’s Creed 4 and they thought they could just throw a bunch of money ar making another one. I’m guessing no one really had a creative vision for the project beyond “make big pirate game.” It looks like Ubisoft got exactly what they paid for.
I look forward to this sort of thing playing out a lot as generative AI becomes more common. “I don’t get it, we fed all the right data points into the computer, but no one likes the result! Why aren’t people enjoying the things that our models show are statistically identical to the other things they like?”
They basically changed the core concept at least twice during development, first rejecting every prototype for two years straight then telling the studio to make "Siege, with boats" and then going
"Sea of Thieves!" 
when that came out.
And the whole time they were shitting on the local devs, rotating out the management, and basically just using the ongoing project as a way to grift subsidies from the Singapore government and have some place for their execs to vacation while pretending to work.
Goddamn, I looked into it more and you weren't exaggerating. What a clown show.
On the flip side of that, I could easily see indie creators feeding a mishmash of ideas into chat-gpt and stable diffusion and coming out with a weird-ass, wonderful game like Kenshi. It's the corporate "polish" that smooths off all the weird edges that will make these insufferable.
Just give me a pirate game where like 30 dudes try to load, aim, and fire 20 guns while trying to repel borders, heal/replace the injured, adjust sails, etc while cannon balls smashing though the ship.
Unfortunately your best option is pretty much a dead game.
Like FTL with a ton of crew?
Exactly, multiplayer, 3d FTL.
If you want to sail around by yourself, navigating, adjusting sails, managing cargo, food, drink, and sleep, Sailwind is a cool indie game where you do that. There's basically no NPC's and absolutely no combat, but it's got the golden age of sail mechanics stuff down.
Exactly. Nothing is going to change about the system. Indie developers will do all the innovation while big studios continue to let endless market research and monetization drive all of their decisionmaking.
'Okay, mes amis... now let's rip out the ship boarding, the melee combat, fleet management, island traversal, towns, most of the resource stuff and economy, and the single-player aspect! C'est magnifique!'
So far away from what anyone wanted or expected.