Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed-inspired pirate game Skull & Bones has been rated by the ESRB, suggesting that it may finally be released soon.
Ubisoft’s online pirate game Skull & Bones has been rated by the ESRB, indicating that it may finally be releasing soon.
As spotted by Polygon, the ESRB recently updated its website with a rating for Skull & Bones — “M” for Mature, for blood, strong language, suggestive themes, use of drugs and violence. This rating indicates that the long-in-development title may actually meet its current targeted release window of Ubisoft’s fiscal year, which ends on March 31, 2023.
Skull & Bones, initially developed as a spinoff of Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag before developing into its own original IP, has been in development for quite a while now. Initially announced at E3 2017, the game ran into numerous production delays and its status has been unknown for some time. A recent leak revealed the first few minutes of piracy, suggesting that the game still exists in some form. Hope began to mount for pirate fans more recently when the Australian Classification Board recently gave Skull & Bones an official rating, and it looks like the ESRB wasn’t too far behind.
In Skull & Bones‘ absence, other games have filled the pirate shaped hole in players’ hearts. Most notably, Sea of Thieves has garnered a fairly significant online player base since its 2018 launch. That game, developed by Donkey Kong Country studio Rare, has continued to receive steady content updates over the last few years, but its more cartoony take on pirates (down to a cameo from Pirates of the Caribbean‘s Jack Sparrow) isn’t quite the grounded swashbuckling adventure Skull & Bones fans have been waiting for.
Meanwhile, Assassin’s Creed, the series which spawned Skull & Bones, has grown at its own pace. Three mainline games in the series have been released since Skull & Bones‘ announcement in 2017. More recently, Ubisoft announced that the Assassin’s Creed series would be making the jump to a live-service model with the upcoming Assassin’s Creed Infinity. Other upcoming Assassin’s Creed titles have been rumored, including a virtual reality game called Assassin’s Creed Nexus and a more stealth-oriented spinoff focused on Assassin’s Creed Valhalla‘s Basim titled Assassin’s Creed Rift.
Skull & Bones‘ ESRB rating suggests that, after five years of delays, the game may actually be released sometime before March 31, 2023. The ESRB page also confirms that the game will come to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and Microsoft Windows. More news is likely to be released at the rumored upcoming Ubisoft showcase.
Source: Polygon