Skull & Bones sheds its launcher shackles, but the Steam release turns into a debacle

Half a year after its release, Ubisoft’s pirate game is also available on Steam. But the launch doesn’t go particularly well

Skull and Bonesmany of us have probably forgotten about it by now. Ubisoft’s pirate game was stuck in development hell for a long time and only finally set sail in February 2024 – after over ten years of development

However, as we discovered in our test, the game was still not ready for releaseand was therefore unable to win over many fans. This should probably change with the Steam release on August 22, but here too the pirate game suffers shipwreck

No free promotion in sight

In order to recruit as many new pirates as possible, Skull and Bones was supposed to have a free trial version for the Steam release. You would have been able to try out the game for a total of six hours free of charge and then purchase it at a reduced price

One day before the release, however, it was announced that the free trial would be postponed. No new date or reason for the delay was given

It remains to be seen whether Skull and Bones will attract many more future pirates with the start of the promotion. So far, however, Ubisoft is probably not satisfied with the Steam release.A maximum of 500players are active at the same time via Valves platform. And of the 70 or so reviews, only 49 percent are positive

In the Steam reviews, many players complain about technical problems and state that they are stuck in matchmaking without being able to play at all.

Improvements and new content

Smaller improvements that Ubisoft announced for the Steam release were probably not enough to generate much enthusiasm for Skull and Bones. Among other things, the developers have worked on the performance and improved the mouse and keyboard controls

The third season with new content for the pirate game was also released in time for the Steam release. Among other things, there is a new ship as well as new weapons and rewards. In addition, two Chinese pirate lords are now making the ocean unsafe. You can read more about the new season on theofficial website