Skull and Bones delayed by Ubisoft once again, will now release in 2023

Ubisoft also announced that Skull & Bones will be receiving an open beta “in the near future”.

Skull & Bones has been delayed once again by Ubisoft. Earlier destined for November 8 release, the game is now heading to next year for a release on March 9, 2023. This is the fourth delay announced for Skull & Bones in four years ever since the game was announced in 2017. Ubisoft has also announced that an open beta for Skull & Bones will eventually arrive “in the near future”. As for the delay, here’s what Ubisoft had to say: 

Ubisoft delays Skull & Bones

“Our team is hard at work polishing and balancing the experience ahead of the worldwide launch. As a result, we’ve made the tough decision to move our release date to March 9, 2023.” Ubisoft added, “We’re very eager for you all to get your hands on Skull and Bones and dive in headfirst to the dangerous and exciting world of building your own pirate empire. To give you the best possible experience we’ve decided to take a little more time to make sure we can deliver exactly that.”

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Kotaku reported that while the gameplay in the latest playtesting was more refined, the overall player progression felt shallow to one of their sources. This could be one of the reasons why Ubisoft has decided to take some more time to polish and even things out. Ubisoft also provided confirmation today of an open beta for the game, to follow "in the near future". Given the success of Multiversus and Call of Duty Modern Warfare II open beta, it does seem like a good move to let players have a go at the game before its full release.

Skull & Bones' development hell

Skull & Bones lingered in development hell for years before it was finally shown off this year. Development on this game can be traced as far back as 2013 when it was originally planned as an expansion to Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag. The game was eventually announced in 2017 but as a standalone multiplayer ship battler. Then, the development news went quiet in 2018 and the project itself got internally tweaked and re-imagined several times before it ultimately was revealed this year as an open-world survival pirate game.