Highlights

  • Skull and Bones draws heavily from the acclaimed style of Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag, particularly in seafaring gameplay.
  • The land-based gameplay in Skull and Bones mirrors Assassin's Creed's Discovery Tour, lacking in pirate shenanigans and engagement.
  • While Skull and Bones offers a customizable and strategic seafaring experience, it falls short in exciting land exploration.

Spiritually succeeding Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag from 11 years ago, Ubisoft's Skull and Bones has finally hit store shelves. Now, players can once again have their very own pirate adventure in a Ubisoft game, and although the game is far from perfect, it does offer a decent enough experience for fans of Edward Kenway's tale. However, Skull and Bones may have also taken a bit of inspiration from the wrong side of Assassin's Creed.

The core seafaring gameplay of Skull and Bones feels ripped straight from Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag, but the land-based gameplay feels like it is from an entirely different mode. Instead of being filled with classic pirate shenanigans, the gameplay seems to take more cues from Assassin's Creed's Discovery Tour. While some players may enjoy that simpler gameplay loop, the game would likely have been a lot stronger if that aspect was a bit more engaging.

Skull And Bones With Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag
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Skull and Bones' Style Feels A Lot Like Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag

Practically everything about Skull and Bones gameplay feels like a new take on Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag's acclaimed style. In that game, players took control of Edward Kenway as he sailed the seas looting, pillaging, and tracking down the Templar Order. It led to an experience unlike any other, with fans yearning to return to the high seas in a similar adventure. Skull and Bones has seemingly taken those pirate ideas and tossed them into a multiplayer format, with mixed results.

The seafaring gameplay of Skull and Bones plays a lot like Black Flag, with a few tweaks. The combat is a bit more arcadey, the ships are far more customizable, and there is more strategy involved. Additionally, the art style feels heavily reminiscent of the Assassin's Creed world and players are often treated to sea shanties on their journey. But at the same time, Skull and Bones also removed some popular features like ship boarding, hand-to-hand combat, and land-bound exploration, which has made for a lackluster experience overall.

Skull and Bones' Gameplay Feels More Like Assassin's Creed's Discovery Tour

The ship combat may feel like Black Flag, but the land-based gameplay does not. Instead of letting players freely explore islands to their heart's content, the islands of Skull and Bones are mostly inaccessible with only a few actually able to be explored. It doesn't help that the actual exploration aspect leaves much to be desired.

Players are really only able to walk around these locales, interact with a few NPCs, and navigate all sorts of different menus. Without anything fight or any challenges to really overcome, there is practically nothing to do on these islands. And even though there is also no historical journey to go on, the lack of some of Black Flag's best features makes Skull and Bones feel a lot more like Assassin's Creed's new Discovery Tour mode.

Discovery Tour sees all the violent aspects of the recent Assassin's Creed games disappear in favor of letting players simply see what the world would look like hundreds of years ago. They can wander the massive open worlds and learn about history in recreations of real places. There really is not much to do outside of that, which is what makes the mode so special. It has proven to be a useful tool for history buffs and teachers, but it is not the most engaging for those looking for a typical gaming adventure.

While Skull and Bones likely did not actually copy this mode, the lack of engaging things to do makes it feel like it did. All players can really do on these islands is interact with things and look around, which sounds eerily similar to what Discovery Tour was built upon. Hopefully, Ubisoft has plans to shake the land-based gameplay up a bit more, because right now, this makes it feel rather boring.