Here we have the answer to the question about the Skull and Bones class – Ubisoft’s long-suffering pirate action, which was delayed for almost 7 years.

Ubisoft co-founder and CEO Yves Guillaume explained why Skull and Bones costs so much ($70) during a conference call with investors to discuss the quarterly report. In particular, one of the accredited participants asked why Ubisoft decided to sell the game for $70, and not choose a shareware distribution model, given the background of the project (Yves Guillaume wrote more here). To this, Yves Guillaume replied that Skull and Bones is a full-fledged and very large-scale game, so such a price is fully justified. So what, the $200 million spent on development over 10 years will not pay for itself.

*You will see that Skull and Bones is a complete game. This is a very big game and we are sure that people will see for themselves how big the game is. It’s a really complete, AAA-… AAAA-game that will perform well in the long run.”

Yves Guillaume,
CEO of Ubisoft

It can be recalled that for the first time Ubisoft included Skull and Bones among AAAA-class games back in 2020 — together with the no less problematic Beyond Good & Evil 2, it was announced back in 2008, it is still in production hell and it is not known when it will be released.

Skull and Bones will be released on February 16 on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S – yesterday, a three-day open beta test (not without problems at the start) started on all platforms, which will last until February 11 inclusive. Anyone can take part in it (only an account in Ubisoft Connect is required): there are two regions to explore (the coast of Africa and East India), and the character can be leveled up to the sixth level of the first rank. Players will be able to transfer all progress to the full version of the game after release. Various cosmetics, emotes, pets, weapons and other bonuses are also promised for participating in testing.

Future releases and financial successes

In the report, Ubisoft has confirmed the release dates of several upcoming projects: the large-scale open-world action Star Wars Outlaws, developed by Massive Entertainment, will be released by the end of 2024, and Assassin’s Creed (Codename Red), set in feudal Japan, between April and March 2025 -th, and The Division Resurgence and Rainbow Six Mobile – as far as the 2025 fiscal year (April 2025-March 2026). Ubisoft promises to reveal more details about future games in May 2024.

As for Ubisoft’s financial “successes”, according to the results of the third quarter of the fiscal year 2024, which ended on December 31, the company earned 626.2 million euros – 13.8% less than in the same period last year, but slightly higher than the projected 610 million euro. The result for 9 months is 1.448 billion euros – 1.6% higher than for the same period of the previous year. These financial figures are largely due to the success of Assassin’s Creed Mirage, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, The Crew Motorfest and Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown (exact sales figures are not disclosed). At the same time, the sales of Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR did not live up to expectations – Ubisoft only sparingly called them “normal” and reported that there are no plans to increase investments in the direction of VR.