SUMMARY
- Skull and Bones is Ubisoft's "AAAA" pirate themed live-service game.
- The game opened up to great expectations after several delays.
The year 2024, has seen some unexpected games come out and set some amazing records. Palworld has been one of the best indie games to come out this year. The game has shocked everyone with the way things unfolded and by the end of February, it had managed to sell over 15 million copies on Steam and reached the mark of 15 million players on Xbox.
This year also saw some expected games to become an instant hit. One such game was Helldivers 2 which lived up to the expectations of the players and sold over one million copies in just three days of its release.
It seems that Skull & Bones, which officially launched yesterday is being met with overall negative reviews and comparisons to another Ubisoft title which released back in 2013:
Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag!
AC IV apparently provided a superior naval experience in comparison pic.twitter.com/D7ikgEkKyI
— The Ones Who Came Before 🦅 (@ACFirstCiv) February 17, 2024
However, this wasn’t the same with the much-anticipated release of Ubisoft in 2024. Players had high hopes with Ubisoft’s Skull and Bones, but it was sad to see that the game didn’t live to much of it. The game was released after several delays and didn’t receive great reviews from the critics.
Skull and Bones player count does not cross 1 million
The pirate theme game even failed to excite players after its launch. According to sources of Insider Gaming, Skull & Bones, which Ubisoft’s CEO refers to as the company’s first “AAAA game,” has not even managed to get one million overall players.
According to these named sources, at the present time, Skulls and Bones have managed to only get about 850,000 total players. Moreover, this number includes the ones who have chosen to use the game’s eight-hour free trial period.
The sources also state that with the typical user spending three to four hours a day playing, it appears that players are now somewhat engaged in the game.
Skull & Bones’s review scores are completely cooked and as far as i can tell, absolutely no one has bought this “AAAA” game.
I really can’t believe Ubisoft fumbled the easiest multi-million dollar pitch for a game ever which is: “Make Black Flag 2”. Failure sucks to see and I… pic.twitter.com/mtuXVUOxFA
— Synth Potato🥔 (@SynthPotato) February 17, 2024
It is unclear, though, whether the game will be able to even sustain this number after the free trial ends. This is because to sustain this number after the trial period, players need to buy the full game. However, this will not be known just yet as the data won’t likely become known until Ubisoft’s upcoming earnings call, which is expected to take place in May 2024.
In the past, sources also disclosed that Skulls and Bones was estimated to have cost Ubisoft over $200 million throughout its ten-year development process, and this is a price that the company does not anticipate recouping.
Skull and Bones low player count reason
The choice to set Skull and Bones full price at $70, which has drawn disapproval from both the public and people within the company, has been identified as a significant contributing factor to the low player count, according to sources.
However, Ubisoft CEO Guillemot had come out in the past to justify the hefty price tag saying that it is a “quadruple A” game. It also looks like now that even people from his company were not convinced by the statement.
The high price of ‘Skull & Bones’, which has divided opinion among players, has been defended by Ubisoft due to the game’s “quadruple-A” status.
Sam Pegg reports | #Gaming on The Indiependent.https://t.co/y40WCTCca2
— The Indiependent (@indie_pendent) February 14, 2024
According to Insider Gaming sources, an employee who worked on the game added, “I think we all know this is a $30-$40 game at best, but it’s not in our control to determine those things”.
Therefore, with the latest player count, it looks like fans also think likewise. The game comes with many live service elements and since players will need to shell out extra cash to get these things, it can seem excessive to need players to hefty price tag to get the game.